There’s lots to do in the garden at this time of year. Here’s a list of jobs to do now.

1. Prepare garden beds for summer flowers by digging in some compost and organic fertiliser.
2. Deadhead daffodils and jonquils as they finish flowering, but continue liquid-feeding the plants regularly until the leaves yellow and wither.
3. Pluck and bag dead flowers from azaleas to prevent a build-up of disease.
4. Give summer-blooming shrubs a trim and tidy-up if needed.
5. Use hedge shears to cut tatty clumps of ornamental grasses off at ground level.
6. Prune poinsettias and any other winter-blooming euphorbias, such as snowflake (Euphorbia leucocephala).
7. Check all of your indoor plants and discard any that are heavily infested with scale or mealy bug.
8. Begin applying lime to hydrangeas to change the flower colour to pink, or use blueing solution for blue flowers.
9. Visit cymbidium orchid shows to admire and choose new varieties.
10. Cheer up the late-winter garden by filling pots with colourful violas and other seasonal flowers.

You’ll find more than 50 gardening projects this month, including how to make a quick greenhouse, prune citrus gall wasp lumps, and plant a hedge, in the August 2020 issue of ABC Gardening Australia magazine, out now.