Don't despair - you can tame that post-holiday jungle, advises GINA PARKINSON.

IF YOU have come back from holiday and found a jungle where the garden used to be, don't despair. A few hours out there will soon get it back into shape and may even encourage another flush of flowers, particularly from annuals and tender perennials.

Cosmos, pelargoniums and calendula, for example, will often produce new flowering stems after pruning.

Take off all seed heads and cut back. If buds are already forming further down, take them back to just above this point. Then water well and feed, especially if they are in a pot that didn't have fertiliser added at the time of planting.

Shrubs such as buddleia that have finished flowering can also be trimmed back to tidy them up and to encourage the production of new flower stems.

I pruned mine lightly a couple of weeks ago by removing all the dead flowerheads and new shoots are already beginning to grow, each carrying an infant bloom.

These will not be as large as those in the first flush but should still attract butterflies and bees at the end of the month.

Like the annuals and perennials being encouraged to flower again, shrubs can be watered to help them along the way, even if they are well established. Soak the soil around the shrub thoroughly, especially if they are planted against a west or south facing wall or are in competition with larger trees and shrubs.

Weeding will soon smarten up an unkempt border, as will cutting back tatty looking perennials which have finished for this year. Make a note of gaps and look around garden centres and nurseries to get ideas for late summer colour.

Climbers such as jasmine can take over quickly and the removal of a few wayward stems will do the plant no harm. Ours is a complete tangle of stems through which grows Clematis viticella 'Etoile Violette'. I like the wildness of the two plants that look charming together, with the small white fragrant flowers of the jasmine contrasting beautifully with the reddish purple ones of the clematis.

They don't always flower together but hard pruning of the jasmine this spring delayed its flowering and no pruning of the clematis brought its flowers out earlier than usual.

However, wildness can become a problem and has to be taken in hand at some point - usually when it has rained and it is impossible to get past the jasmine without getting soaked. And even though I filled two large bags with prunings from this wandering plant, it still looks just as good and will probably need some more attention before the summer is over.

Updated: 09:05 Saturday, August 16, 2003