Top tips for gardening this summer

What does a show garden designer do in the garden at this time of year? James Purdy, designer of the Repak Most Sorted Garden – which won the Best Large Show Garden Award at this year’s Bord Bia Bloom – shares his tips for late summer gardening.

What are you doing in your garden this month? 

Right now I am busy weeding, deadheading roses, and preparing to harvest my first crop of potatoes and salad leaves.

Weeding is not a glamorous job but you have to keep on top of it at this time of year. The weather has been so hot and wet that the weeds are really taking off. Weekly weeding with a short hoe will help to keep them at bay.

How do you prune your roses? 

I usually cut them back to the first joint just as the first blooms go over in the hope that they will flower again. Then I cut the roses back hard in early autumn and feed them well.

What other maintenance should gardeners be doing at this time of year? 

Have a look at the composition of your garden. See what’s doing well and where needs attention. Try to keep the shape of everything and don’t let your plants run too wild. Even in a naturalistic garden, you need to make sure that one plant doesn’t dominate the space. If I think something is getting too bullish, I will cut it back so that it doesn’t take from the plants around it.

How often do you water the garden in warm weather? 

My garden is well established now so there is no need to feed or water it. However, if you have planted a new garden or if you have plants in pots you will need to water more often. Give everything a good soak, especially pots, every two to three days and feed once to twice a month. 

What’s good in the garden now? 

It’s easy to design a garden with colour in early summer but it’s important to plan for later in the year too so look for plants that will bloom into autumn. Crocosmia and Japanese anemones are beautiful at this time of year and will extend the flowering season in your garden. Geranium Rozanne is another favourite of mine; it’s a hardy perennial that will flower from early summer into winter.

You won a gold medal and the Best Large Show Garden Award for your Repak Most Sorted Garden at this year’s Bloom. Congratulations! Tell us about the garden. 

This was my sixth year designing a garden at Bloom and it was one of the most complex gardens that I had to figure out as we used salvaged materials for everything. It’s easy to go to a supplier and buy all new materials but it takes a little more thought and effort when you choose recycled and repurposed items. We used materials such as salvaged gravel and paving, old cans and bottles, and showed that they can be both useful and beautiful in a garden.

The goal of the garden was to inspire people to rethink their relationship with materials and embrace a world where nothing is thrown away, only transformed. It worked as visitors were very interested in our message and there were lots of ideas for them to take away. People saw that you can take ordinary materials and make a show garden out of them. We were delighted with the response, and I was thrilled to receive a gold medal and the Best in Category award.

You can read more about the Repak Most Sorted Garden and see a 360° view of the design here. For more about James’ work, visit jamespurdyarchitects.co.uk and follow @jp.arch_design