Beware of butterfly eggs that can destroy your veggies!

As we drift towards the end of July, the garden is looking good, with peak flowering happening all around us.

Sweet peas are filling the air with a heady summer scent and the roses are looking lovely in the summer sunshine.

Dead heading is an important task to do in order to keep the show going, and regular feeding with a liquid seaweed will help promote flowering for the rest of the summer.

The vegetable garden is starting to fill out nicely finally, as it had a slow start this year. There is plenty to harvest with lots of delicious greens such as spinach, chard, kale, lettuce and beetroot leaves aplenty right now.

Brassicas like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage are also looking good, but do remember to be vigilant for the cabbage white butterfly from now on, as they will be looking to lay their eggs on the under surface of brassica leaves, and once these bad boys hatch out they will make mince-meat of the leaves of these plants. Squashing the yellow eggs before they hatch out is one of the best controls.

It may be best to net these crops if you are going on holidays for a prolonged spell, rather than coming home to the skeletal remains of the leaves!

Tomatoes are slowly starting to ripen in the glasshouses and polytunnels, with weekly tying in, removal of side shoots and feeding essential for the indeterminate or vine tomatoes to ensure a good crop.

Removing the lower leaves is a good idea to increase ventilation and exposure to sunlight, which will help with ripening the tomatoes.

There really is no comparison with the taste of your own tomatoes, eaten while still warm after harvesting, with a sprinkle of black pepper and balsamic vinegar - delicious!

Hedges are starting to look woolly now, and will be needing an annual haircut to keep growth in check. They can form such a strong structural element of the garden, and when cut well give a sharp, crisp and clean appearance to it.

They are an important element of the garden, to provide wildlife corridors, windbreaks, absorb pollution, and provide privacy in more urban settings.

We wait so long over winter to see some signs of growth and then, when it happens, we want to tidy it up! Such is the nature of being a gardener.

Some vigorous hedges such as griselinia and laurel may need two trims in a year, but generally most will look well with just one around now, so that they can put on a little growth before slowing down again as the season progresses.

Do be vigilant and check for any nesting birds or fledglings that may be in a hedge, and defer any work until they have left the nest.

Herbaceous plants are looking well ag present, with flowering at its best with Phlox, Veronicastrum, Crocosmia, Geraniums, Echinacea and Achilleas. Deadheading now and cutting back or taking out plants that have gone over, like foxgloves, is a good idea to keep the illusion of fresh new growth going!

Some gaps can be filled with seasonal fillers like Cosmos, Dahlia, Amaranthus, Nicotiana or Salvias, and these plants will take you well into the autumn months.

A lot of the heavy lifting of gardening is done in the winter months, with transplanting and divisions undertaken on a big scale in beds and borders. At this time of the year, it is minor interventions - plugging gaps of gone-over plants and keeping the colour and interest going through the summer months.

We have been getting some nice soft rain intermittently, which is welcome in the garden to keep growth fresh, and watering is not as major a concern around established plants as a result.

The weeds are responding well to the rain also and need to be kept in check, particularly around newly-planted trees and shrubs that will just be getting their roots down into the soil for the first year and will need regular watering to ensure becoming established and independent in a stress- free environment.

This is an important factor to consider for newly- planted trees and shrubs, as once plants get stressed, they may never recover completely, leading to complications later in their life span.

Plant of the Week

At this time of the year, driving along the secondary country roads in West Cork is a bit like driving through a herbaceous border, such is the colour and variety of native wildflowers making their presence felt.

Among the stand-out performers right now are devil’s bit scabious, crocosmia, rosebay willow herb, wild carrot, meadow sweet, hawkbit and purple loosestrife.

They are combining to give a great combination of colours and textures that provide some curiosity when driving.

Lythrum salicaria ‘Robin’ is a pink cultivar of purple loosestrife, the native wildflower commonly seen growing in damp ditches or hedgerows, bearing upright magenta pink flowers from June into the autumn months.

Having a strong colour like this is eye-catching in beds and borders at any time of the year, but particularly as the summer months go on, and its upright habit is great to give some structure also.

This plant can get to more than a metre tall with a spread of about 60cm, and will do best in full sun, but does tolerate some shade.

It is very at home in a damp soil and will grow on the edge of waterways with its roots in water, making it a great plant for a wet soil.

Flowering from June into September, pollinators simply love this plant.