The long drawn out cold winter seems to have done a lot of good to the gardens this spring. There are not so many slugs and the flowers and shrubs etc are excelling themselves.  However continue to protect lillies, hostas and other susceptible plants from slugs and snails.  Also watch out for vine weevil and scarlet lily beetle, both of which can seriously damage plants.  
Many spring flowering shrubs, including clematis, can be pruned as soon as their flowers have started to fade.  Any shoots that have carried flowers can be cut back, shortening them to shape the shrub and control its size.  Forsythia can grow large and ungainly if left to its own devices, so prune to give it a definite shape and form.
Plant out summer bedding and seed-raised plants. Make sure they are well watered in and keep moist during dry weather.  Finish planting out gladioli.  Gaps in herbaceous borders are best filled with annual bedding at this stage in the season, delaying any planting of permanent perennials until the autumn or the following spring. Thin out direct sowings of hardy annuals. This is best done in two or three stages at fortnightly intervals.
As soon as cuttings taken earlier in the season have produced a good root system, pot them into a slightly larger pot, using the same compost as they were potted in before, leaving a gap at the top of the pot that can be watered into.
Remember to cut off the old flower stems of herbaceous plants such as oriental poppies, lupins, certain cranesbills and campanulas. This may encourage a second flush of flowers. Spray roses every fourteen days against black spot, mildew, rust and aphids.  Pick off diseased leaves and destroy them.  Pull away brier shoots and suckers.  Mulch well with well-rotted manure or garden compost.  Tie climbing roses to a trellis. If you started off your dahlia tubers in pots now is the time to transfer them into the ground.  Trim back winter flowering heathers with shears.  Do not cut into the woody part just shear the tops off.  Divide primroses for replanting.  
In the Greenhouse take cuttings of Pelargoniums, Fuchsias and Chrysanthemums.  
Feed tomato plants once a week when fruits have formed.  Train and feed cucumber plants, removing the male flowers. Keep the greenhouse well ventilated
Train in new blackberry and loganberry shoots.  Summer prune gooseberries.  Tie in new wall-trained peach and nectarine shoots.  Anchor healthy strawberry runners so that they form new plants and protect the strawberries from slugs by packing straw or sheets of newspaper around them.
Crops to sow outside in early June include runner beans, dwarf French beans, kohl rabi, carrots, marrows, cauliflowers, peas, ridge cucumbers, sweet corn, swede, lettuce, endive, squashes and spinach.
Regularly mow the lawn to keep it looking good.  If you are troubled with moss use a combined fertiliser and mosskiller when feeding it.

Reproduced from the BASINGA, Parish Magazine of Old Basing and Lychpit, by kind permission of the Editor and Author, Irene Allaway.