W e’re on the brink of June: long days, start of summer, often wetter than people bargain for – and time to act on the gaps that can appear in borders in July if we’re not careful. It’s awkward that summer is both the time most people think about gardening and the worst time to plant anything: you really want reliable rainfall and moist soil to get things off to a good start. But if you have had a spectacular spring and aren’t expecting much to turn up over summer, now is the time to act. My advice is slightly vicarious: I’m currently on a plant-buying ban. My garden will probably be an inaccessible building site for most of the summer, so it seems daft to indulge when everything feels so expensive. I have, however, bent the rules slightly for plants grown and sold by local charitable gardens: 100 Gladiolus murielae corms, and two packets of Chiltern Seeds’ easy-peasy mix after the neighbouring cats turned my wildflower patch into a litterbox. Apart from that, I’m sticking to donations and volunteers.…