THE TOP 11 SUMMER GARDEN JOB OPTIONS

These are the 11 tasks that we believe are necessary to ensure that your garden and indoor plants flourish throughout the summer and well into the autumn.

1. Remove any stones.

‘Opal’ plums prepared for picking

To prevent silver leaf disease, prune stone fruit trees in the summer.


Pruning plum trees, gages, apricots, and cherries should be done before midsummer.

These types of fruit trees may be vulnerable to a fungal illness known as silver leaf disease, which releases its spores in late summer and continues into winter. This is in contrast to the majority of other deciduous fruit trees, which are clipped during their dormant season in the autumn.

They must be clipped within the brief window of late summer when there is less likelihood of catching silver leaf in order to protect them from infection.

Use clean, sharp instruments whenever you prune any tree or shrub to prevent disease transmission and wood damage. For thinner branches, I like using these best-selling Gonicc 8-inch Bypass Pruning Shears from Amazon; for tougher wood, I use a foldable pruning saw like this robust Rexbeki folding saw with a 14-inch blade from Amazon.

Long-handled loppers, like as this Amazon best-seller Fiskars 28-inch bypass loppers, make it simple to handle branches higher up.

Eliminate any diseased, dead, or dying branches; unhealthy timber should be trimmed back to clean, healthy material. After that, trim off any weak, spindly, or inward-growing branches as these might obstruct airflow through the plant and give it an untidy appearance.

A silvery sheen on leaves and a black stain in the wood when it is cut are signs of silver leaf. Bracket fungus with a white top surface and a purple-brown bottom may be found on older, dead wood.

If you see a silver leaf on your tree, trim any afflicted branches back to 4-6 inches of good wood beyond the infected material and discard it right away. Then, clean your pruning tools.

2. Get your garden and indoor plants ready for vacation.

When you are gone, place houseplants on moist capillary matting so they have access to water.

When you are gone, place houseplants on moist capillary matting so they have access to water.


Before leaving on vacation, there are usually a lot of tasks to do, but don’t forget to check your travel papers and pack your suitcases—or to make sure your garden is in excellent condition.

Mow the yard, remove weeds, and deadhead plants. Set a watering schedule for plants that need the most water, such as patio planters and baskets and crops grown in growbags. Invest in an autonomous watering system, like the well regarded Drip watering System that is sold on Amazon, if you are concerned about their well-being.

These may be fastened to a timer that is fastened to a garden tap, such as the wildly popular Orbit 62061Z Single-Outlet Hose Watering Timer from Amazon. After setting the timer, you may go for your vacation knowing that your plants will get irrigation while you’re away.

I also like to use bottle drippers for patio planters, like these charming terracotta vacation plant waterers from Amazon.com. To keep your plants healthy, they are connected to a bottle that is filled with water and liquid tomato feed. The bottle releases a steady stream of food and moisture.

To ensure that plants get enough ventilation and are less prone to overheat, water and fertilize them while keeping the door ajar and the window open. In order to maintain a healthy climate, a few bowls of water positioned throughout the greenhouse will also assist lower temperatures and increase humidity.

Remember to take care of your indoor plants and harvest and preserve any mature harvests. I use the bathroom and put plants in the tub with a little water at the bottom. Water them before you leave and transfer them to cold spaces.

An other option is to place plants on absorbent capillary matting with one end submerged in a bowl of water, such as this highly regarded automated plant watering system on Amazon. In this manner, plants will have access to enough moisture while you are away.

3. Take Care Of The Hanging Baskets And Patio Containers

Vines and pansies in a container

Regularly check baskets and containers for bugs


Here’s a list of things to do to maintain the attractive appearance of your container garden that you have built with your ideas and planted baskets full of the finest basket and trailing plants.

As a result of their dense growth of plants in a small area, they quickly exhaust food sources and need careful watering.

Every few days, check the compost by inserting your finger up to the first knuckle. Water the plants if they seem dry, but if there is still moisture, hold off until the next day.

Once flower buds have developed and begun to open, start fertilizing the plants every two weeks using a tomato fertilizer solution. One such product is the competitively priced Farmer’s Secret Tomato Booster on Amazon, which has a high potassium content that promotes greater flowering.

Be vigilant against vermin, eliminating slugs, snails, and caterpillars by hand. If plants abruptly stop growing and die, it might be due to vine weevil grubs consuming their roots. To prevent this, treat the compost with a Nature’s Good Guys beneficial nematode solution, which can be found on Amazon.

Regular deadheading will encourage more flowers. For sticky-sapped petunias, you may wish to use snips.

4. Gather Softwood Cuttings

Take summertime cuttings of pelargonium.

Pelargonium cuttings are an easy and fast method to get free ore plants.


Taking cuttings from sensitive perennials like pelargoniums, penstemons, and fuchsias is best done in the middle of summer.

They serve as a kind of “insurance policy” against plants dying in the winter, but they also provide you with free plants to work with the next year while you’re designing flower beds or coming up with ideas for summer container ideas.

By taking care of a few typical cuts errors now, you may give them enough time to reach a size big enough to be transplanted into pots before the arrival of winter.

Softwood cuttings from this season’s growth are harvested, and they ought to take root rapidly. After the frosts pass, you may take them outside the next year if you keep them in the greenhouse or a cool place inside.

5. Take a Few Indoor Plants Outside

In the summer, move some indoor plants outside.

In the summer, several types of houseplants may be carried outside into the garden.


In the summer, we all like being outdoors, so why shouldn’t our houseplants get the same benefits?

It’s acceptable to transplant a few kinds outdoors in the summer, but timing is crucial to houseplant life when moving them into the garden. Since most houseplants are native to temperate regions and cannot withstand cold temperatures, wait until the weather is consistently moderate, particularly at night. You should also never transfer them outside while frosts are still possible.

After a few hours of daily movement outdoors, bring them back inside at night until they have become used to the new environment. Although leafy houseplants like calathea and anthurium like to be out of direct sun, start them in a position with some moderate shade and gradually transfer them to a sunny spot.

Rain can assist indoor plants have clean leaves (just watch out that succulents and cacti don’t rot), and mild winds will fortify their stems and branches. However, if storms are predicted, relocate your indoor plants to a protected area.

Before transferring your plants outdoors, always make sure they meet the growth needs. Some plants, such moth orchids and Ficus benjamina (weeping figs, which are among the greatest interior trees), dislike being relocated, particularly outside.

African violets and other plants with fuzzy leaves should also be kept inside since rain ruins their lovely foliage. When the autumn weather cools down, bring them back inside and don’t forget to give them a pest inspection.

6. Follow the Pest Patrols

rubbing a colony of aphids off a rose bloom with your fingertips

rubbing a colony of aphids off a rose bloom with your fingertips


If we are not careful to keep them in control, a summer garden becomes a veritable “all you can eat” banquet for pests and a fertile breeding ground for illnesses.

The use of chemical insecticides to eradicate undesired pests is becoming less common among gardeners and gardening associations like the Royal Horticultural Society in the United Kingdom. By doing this, you’ll increase the natural variety in your yard and reduce the amount of pests that live there. Other benefits include attracting birds and helpful insects like ladybirds.

Keeping a careful watch on plants and eliminating minor pest populations by hand before they become uncontrollable—picking off slugs, snails, caterpillars, and aphids—is the simplest method of avoiding undesired infestations.

Biological controls will be beneficial as well. These are natural predators, usually minuscule mites or eelworms that target certain pests and then die off at the end of the season when their food supply runs out, or parasitic wasps like Encarsia formosa (available from Nature’s Good Guys on Amazon) that predate whiteflies.

7. Nip Plant Diseases in the Bud: A purple blossom with powdery mildew

With proper plant care, diseases like the powdery mildew on this clematis may be prevented.


Everyone is concerned about illnesses spreading among their plants, and starting with healthy plants is the greatest approach to help stop this from happening.

It’s important to purchase plants from reputable sellers and ensure that they have glossy leaves, aren’t pot bound (turn them over to check if roots are poking through the drainage holes), and don’t have moss or weeds growing in their compost, as these signs may indicate that they have been on sale for a while.

When planting, make sure to read the labels to determine the maximum size of your plants and to provide enough room for each one to develop. If you are recycling garden pots, you should constantly clean them to get rid of any remaining bugs or illnesses.

Plants that are packed too closely together may be more susceptible to common fungal diseases like powdery mildew and hollyhock rust because less air can reach their leaves and stems. Additionally, close planting facilitates insect migration between plants.

Should you see any indication of a disease, remove the afflicted portion of the plant, or the whole plant if the illness is severe, and dispose of it properly; never compost it. When you remove sick plant material from your pruning instruments, always clean and disinfect them.

Hence, if you give your plants the room they need, along with enough food and water, they will provide you with beautiful flowers and glossy foliage throughout the summer.

8. Maintain the Health of Your Greenhouse with Proper Ventilation

Damping the floor of the greenhouse lowers the temperature and maintains plant vitality.


Make sure your greenhouse is a safe and healthy area for plants to flourish if you own one. Plants may burn and wither in extreme heat, spider mites will thrive in dry conditions, and overwatering them puts them at danger of rotting from the bottom up.

Improve airflow in the greenhouse by keeping doors and windows open, and cover the structure with sun-blocking netting, like this highly regarded Cool Area sun screen on Amazon, to regulate the greenhouse’s temperature.

Washable shading paint is an additional choice. One such product is this rain-resistant Inspired Cool Glass item, which is available on Amazon. Early summer is when this is put to the windows, and autumn is when it is removed.

In addition to lowering the temperature and increasing humidity in the morning, damping down the floor also helps deter glasshouse red spider mites. Although these sap-sucking parasites may harm plants and transmit disease, they are repelled by “wet feet,” so keeping compost moist and the air somewhat humid can help keep them away.