Although a challenging season so far, my garden, though a bit wind-blown, has looked spectacular this month, especially the roses, clematis, crambe, foxgloves and lupins. This seems to be the case with most of the gardens I have visited recently. The extra water has left them looking refreshed and beautiful, hopefully providing a lovely welcome to our Olympic visitors.

The water restrictions have meant that feeding has probably been more frequent than usual. It is just as easy to add a drop of feed when using a watering can. I must be careful not to overdo it - too much can cause as many problems as not enough. Gardeners are always optimistic. I’m deadheading and cutting back plants like violas, and nepeta (cat mint), which will soon look as good as new, so that when summer starts the garden will be ready! I am also giving a quick feed of tomato fertiliser to my camellias, which had a balanced ericaceous (acid soil) granule fertiliser applied in March. The reason for this is that they will start making their flower buds very soon and hopefully the extra potash (tomato fertiliser) will encourage lots more flowerbuds.

Just one more point with camellias, they will hold on to their flower-buds right up to flowering time, even if they don’t have enough moisture, and drop just as they open, which can be so disappointing.

As with last month, I have been taking off lots of the bottom leaves, so that any sun we do get will encourage more flowers.I find nasturtiums and runner beans respond particularly well to this.