Now's the time to see your work bearing fruit in the garden. Enjoy fragrant, colourful blooms while you sow vegies and summer annuals, writes Helen Young.

Timely tasks

Feed lawns with a top-quality lawn fertiliser. Prune hedges into shape and whip weeds out before they flower to avoid them multiplying through summer. Feed all plants, if you haven't already, then re-mulch garden beds to keep weeds away and retain moisture as the temperature rises. Pull out spent annuals, such as pansies, and replenish soil with compost and manures. Plant summer annuals for colour – petunias, torenia, marigolds and vinca are bright and easy. Re-pot house plants, giving the leaves a thorough washing and finish with a spray of PestOil or Eco-Oil for glossy, pest-free foliage. Plant shrubs and trees without delay so they can establish before summer's heat. Prune shrubs that flowered in spring and trim off frost-damaged foliage. Fertilise and water spring bulbs after they flower, removing spent flowers, as this builds up the bulbs for next year's flowering.

The productive garden

Tuck straw under developing strawberries to keep fruit healthy. Sow dwarf or climbing beans, sweet corn, pumpkins, melons and zucchini. Plant basil, tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants, chillies and silverbeet. Each fortnight, plant leafy greens such as pak choi, mizuna and lettuce. Keep these growing by liquid feeding with a high-nitrogen fertiliser, weekly. In warmer areas, where citrus is planted, feed with pelletised chook poo-based fertiliser, such as Dynamic Lifter. In colder areas plant citrus now.

Plant marigolds, which help deter root-knot nematodes and attract aphid-eating hoverflies. Lavenders, borage and lemon balm attract bees, vital for pollination.

October in bloom

Perfumed lily-of-the-valley and hyacinths, along with tulips and ranunculus, produce dazzling blooms. Others with perfume are lilac, mock orange, and yesterday-today-and-tomorrow (Brunfelsia australis), while port-wine magnolia (Michelia figo), azaleas and rhododendrons add colour. Crabapples and cherry blossom are among the flowering trees.

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