Gardening: Weekend Work

IF YOU sowed wallflower seed in May or June in a nursery row, pinch out the tips now to make bushier, free-flowering plants.

Plants in pots and hanging baskets will benefit from deadheading to keep them flowering for a while longer. Feed them weekly with a general liquid fertiliser if you haven't already used a "controlled-release" one that lasts the season. Cut off the spent flowers of lupins, hardy geraniums and delphiniums.

Now is a good time to take what are called "semi-ripe" cuttings of a number of evergreen shrubs, such as lavender, rosemary, hebe, escallonia, senecio and olearia.

Prune back this year's long growths of wistaria to five leaves from the main stems and, if you have not yet done so, now is the time to prune apples and pears on cordons, fans and espaliers. Cut back the young shoots to three leaves from the main stems.