So too in a smaller garden, where a mown lawn instantly gives a garden a spirited and well-cared for appearance, even if all around it is looking tatty. During very dry weather like we've had, the blades of the mower should be raised or you will get a cut that's too short and sharp and the grass will look brown and unsightly for ages, especially if the weather stays dry.

Spiking the lawn . . . with a fork, or a special spiker . . . will enable water to penetrate rather than stay on the surface. This is pretty hard work, but also very good exercise.

There are some more gentle tasks to be done around the garden now, such as deadheading roses and tidying up early bearded irises after they've flowered. Cut back the stems of the iris and feed them with a scattering of dried seaweed or another organic substance, if they are growing on very poor soil.

That said, the hardier, not overbred kinds of early bearded irises can sometimes flower quite happily on the tops of old, lime-mortared walls and in cracks in stone paths, where there can't be a huge amount of nourishment for them.

Prepare a sunny, welldrained spot for any that you plan to divide and replant later, in July or August. If you give them a lush spot among verdant growth, their corms (the storage organs) won't get enough sun to ripen them for flowering next year and chances are, in a well-stocked garden, that they'll be eaten alive by slugs hiding in the undergrowth.

Cut out shoots that have just flowered from the shrub Deutzia, and also the shoots of broom, if you don't want it to seed around. It also pays to remove the unsightly brown heads of spent lilac and thin out any weak shoots at ground level. These will never amount to much and serve only to clutter up the centre of the shrub and impede the circulation of air.

The immensely decorative flowering quince, Chaenomeles japonica as opposed to the seriously beautiful fruiting tree known as Cydonia, can be propagated now by layering some of its lax stems in pots of light compost placed around the parent plant to which they must remain attached until a year from now, when the new baby plants should be well rooted and able to fend for themselves. Then you can sever them from the parent.

One of the best ways I've seen this grown is trained through railings in the garden of the director's house in the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin. It's best not to wear any good clothes, or even a favourite comfortable old cashmere, when pulling out spent Myosotis, as you will find everything completely covered with sticky, clinging seeds, the tenacity of which could certainly have earned this pretty and most useful blue filler its common name of forget-me-not (there is a more romantic legend surrounding the origin of the name).

Forget-me-nots have passed their best-by date now and most clumps tend to go mouldy and blackened, which is not a pretty sight. This is completely normal, so don't worry about them having a disease or anything like that.

Pull them up by the roots and either brush off the seeds with your hands over selected areas of ground, or tuck the whole plant out of sight beneath the leaves of some burgeoning perennial where you would like to see a sea of blue at tulip time next year.

International Clematis Conference

DUBLIN City University (DCU) is the spacious venue for the first International Clematis Society Conference to be held in Ireland (Friday 30 June-Friday 7 July).

Organised by the Ranunculaceae Society under its dynamic chairperson, Mary Toomey, (who recently had a new clematis garden named in her honour in the Sonoma wine country of California), this is an action-packed conference that's attracting a lot of interest from delegates at home and abroad. There are still some places left, including places for anybody wishing to attend on just one or two days, rather than for the whole week.

Talks on various aspects of "the queen of climbers", as clematis is often called, will be by Helen Dillon, Dan Hinkley from the US (who has just sold on his famous Heronswood nursery there), plantswoman Carmel Duignan and clematis experts from Poland (a country that has bred a lot of excellent new varieties in recent times), from Japan and Britain.

The itinerary also includes visits to the Malahide and National Botanic gardens; a wine reception at Helen Dillon's lovely Ranelagh plot; a day's sailing over to the famous Crug Farm Plants in Wales; drinks in the conservatory at Farmleigh, picnics and packed lunches, buffet suppers and gala dinners and even some dancing in the old whiskey distillery in Smithfield.

To register for all or some of the conference, or for information on prices (they vary depending on how many days you'd like to attend), accommodation and the full itinerary, phone 01-280 2641 or email: clematis2006@ovation. ie or log on to www. clematis2006. com.

GARDEN HEAVEN SHOW

THIS year the Garden Heaven Show (23-25 June, 10am-6pm daily) . . . fronted by Helen Dillon, Dermot O'Neill, Bunny Guinness, John Cushnie and Eanna Ni Lamhna . . . has moved from its perennial perch at the RDS in Dublin to the wide open spaces of Punchestown Racecourse (sometimes called the NEC or National Equestrian Centre in an attempt to rebrand it), which is situated on the Wicklow side of Co Kildare, near the pleasant village of Blessington.

Punchestown indeed has plenty of open space and lots of free parking for cars but mainly because of our unpredictable climate, the organisers have decided to hold the entire thing indoors . . . show gardens, plant stalls, sundries, everything, except perhaps for the children's area, where Muck & Magic presenter, Dale Treadwell, will show them how to "revel in the dirt", which I'm sure they'll all love.

The range and quality of the show gardens sounds promising, with a nice idea from prizewinning husband and wife team, Liat and Oliver Schurmann of Moun Venus Nursery. 'My Home is Where My Garden Is' was "designed to allow the gardener to age and still maintain a garden where beauty and nature are balanced equally".

'The Chocolate Garden' is a design by Fiann O'Nuallain, with plants chosen for their resemblance to chocolate, whether in texture, colour or smell. The so-called 'Chocolate Cosmos' comes to mind immediately. 'Neo Nusantara' is a design by Galway company Terra Gardens, which promises "a tropical paradise garden designed to please the "ve senses". 'The Verdant Soul Garden' is a design by Niall Maxwell, who uses a monochromatic colour scheme while 'The Compass Garden' by Valerie Duffy will demonstrate "how to plan a suburban garden and use a variety of plants to emulate a woodland scheme". 'Natural Meditation', a garden designed by Diarmuid Russell, was inspired by Asian garden landscapes where natural materials re"ect the "ve elements of water, wood, metal, earth and air.

Innovation is the key theme in an array of gardens designed by "nal year garden and landscape students from Dun Laoghaire Senior College and the College of Further Education in Dundrum, Dublin. These displays will be judged by a panel of gardening experts that includes designers Angela Jupe and Frances MacDonald and Rachel Doyle, owner of the prize-winning Arboretum garden centre at Leighlinbridge.

The student entries include 'Oasis', a design by Paul Cox, a skilled horticulturalist and former co-owner of the Hardy Plant nursery in Ballybrack. Trained at the Botanic Gardens some years ago, he is now turning his hand to garden design and, as part of his training, he helped the Schurmanns build their dazzling, prize-winning garden at Hampton Court last year.

This year's Chelsea gold medal winners, Kilmurray Nurseries of Gorey in Co Wexford, will recreate their prize-winning display of herbaceous perennials. Crug Farm Plants, which specialises in very rare stuff, much of which they collect under license in the wild, are another big attraction while Taylor's Clematis Nursery will launch a new variety of clematis at the show. In all, more than 150 exhibitors will offer a range of products, including outdoor equipment, gardening tools, home accessories and DIY products. Tickets are 12, concessions 8 and are available at the entrance or on line at