I love to get everyone out in the garden as much as possible, so I’m hoping for some real summer weather this year, with blue skies and plenty of sunshine. For me, summer means roses. First to bloom in our garden is the Hybrid Musk shrub rose, 'Buff Beauty.' It’s a great favourite, and always delights with its masses of soft yellow-apricot blooms, wonderfully scented. After flowering through June, it takes a rest and flowers again on new growth in September. Other excellent members of the Hybrid Musk family are 'Felicia' (pale-ish pink), 'Cornelia' (pink with a slight apricot tinge) and 'Moonlight'.

Another of my favourites, 'Paul’s Himalayan Musk' is a very vigorous rambler, which will clamber over large shrubs or into a tree. It has prolific clusters of sweetly scented pale pink flowers. For me, a rose without scent is not a rose – but I have to make one exception: I grow a shrub rose called 'Bonica' because it flowers non-stop from now until the first frosts, and is compact and completely healthy.

Good companions for roses include plants with spire-like flowers such as foxgloves and delphiniums; hardy geraniums, and at ground level, violas.

Get your grandchildren into gardening by sowing pumpkin seeds with them. Just follow the instructions on the seed packet early in summer and you should have fully grown pumpkins by Hallowe’en. Kids also enjoy the weird and wonderful shapes of home-grown gourds and squashes.

Last weekend my grandson brought us, with great pride, his home-grown radishes. They are a wonderful crop for children to grow, being easy and giving very quick results, ready to harvest after three or four weeks. They can be sown in succession, any time throughout the summer. Get the children to sow some in your garden or in a window box. They can weed and water their little crop every time they visit you. Mine prefer grown-up garden tools to toy ones, but they can’t manage a big watering can, so they each have their own little one.

Before they disappear from the shops, buy bedding plants for pots and hanging baskets - I'm off to the local nursery to see what’s on offer. The trick of success is to cram in as many plants as you can, then add a few more! Follow up by watering and feeding regularly.