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

1. Pot up coleus seedlings and cuttings to provide leafy colour for shady spots in the summer garden.
2. Prune wisteria and other spring bloomers immediately after they have finished flowering.
3. Use hedge clippers or a power trimmer to cut back shabby and overgrown clumps of grassy lomandra, dianella and pennisetum.
4. Plant dahlia tubers in a sunny spot where the plants can be easily watered in the summer heat.
5. Cut back native hibiscus (Alyogyne huegelii) by two-thirds after its main spring flowering, and feed with blood and bone.
6. Remove small fruit forming on ornamental spring blossom trees so they don’t become hosts for fruit fly.
7. Move potted dendrobium and cymbidium orchids into a bright, warm position out of direct sunlight.
8. Sprinkle fertiliser and spread mulch onto moist soil immediately after spring rains.
9. Pick off and bin rotten and mildewed blooms on plants such as sweet pea, stock, azalea and dianthus.
10. Plant summer-flowering perennial salvias, which will add colour to your garden for months.

You’ll find more than 50 gardening projects this month, including planting potted roses, growing a new passionfruit vine, and taking heel cuttings of fuchsia, in the October 2020 issue of ABC Gardening Australia magazine, out now.