It’s time to tackle summer gardening tasks: Pruning, weeding and deadheading

With gardens in bloom, gardeners are busy at work this time of year.

Pruning is one of my favorite gardening tasks, and the summer pruning season is about to start in earnest. Take time to prune out water sprouts (vigorous shoots on the inside of a tree and on the trunk) and suckers (vigorous shoots growing from the base of a plant). Crabapples and hawthorns tend to send out lots of water sprouts and can benefit from this type of pruning, especially the spring after they’ve been heavily pruned in the winter.

If you have hybrid roses, deadhead them as soon as the flowers fade — although most gardeners are growing shrub roses now, which require less maintenance. Most shrub or landscape roses are self-cleaning and don’t require deadheading. When in doubt, lightly prune old blossoms to keep the plant looking nice. Just don’t deadhead any roses that are being grown for their hip production.

Mowing is one way to control weeds in a large, natural prairie area that is being established in your garden. Native plants typically develop their roots, not their foliage or flowers, in their early years of being established, which gives weeds the opportunity to gain a foothold. Mow weedy areas now at a high height to cut back the weeds and keep them from choking out the native plants. In small areas, weed by hand. You can also carefully spot-treat weeds with an herbicide.

Over the last week I’ve seen a lot of chickweed thriving in gardens; hand pulling it is generally the best approach, but that’s easier said than done when it comes to big infestations.

• Tim Johnson is director of horticulture at Chicago Botanic Garden, chicagobotanic.org.