Events in August:
- Taunton Flower Show - 3 August 2007, Vivary Park, Somerset. Details
- Festival of Orchids - 4 August 2007, Scone Palace, Perthshire. Details
- Organic Vegetables - 13 August 2007, Loseley Park, Surrey. Details
- Perennials for Late Summer Colour - 14 August 2007, Pershore College,
Hereford & Worcester. Details
August's
reader queries answered by Stephen Anderton, The Times .
Click here to read
Week 1:
What to do this week:
- Cut back hardy geraniums to keep them neat and tidy. This should also
encourage a second flush of blooms in the autumn
- Take semi-ripe cuttings of sweet bay (Laurus nobilis) and leave them to root
in a cold frame
- In dry conditions, keep roses well-watered and mulched to prevent attacks by
powdery mildew. If the fungus does appear, remove any badly infected growth
- If you are going away for a few days, group containers and hanging baskets
in a semi-shaded spot and give the compost a good soak. This will help
protect the plants from drying out
- Plant newly rooted strawberry runners in the garden.
(Neil Wormald, Sunday Times)
Weekend tips:
Don’t let your treasured plants in containers frazzle up in unaccustomed heat
while you’re away. There are things you can do to keep them alive.
- First and foremost, ask friends or neighbours to call in and water every
couple of days, and offer your services in return.
- Set up a mini-bore drop system on a timer for pots and baskets (not in
hosepipe restriction areas, though). From www.hozelock.com, garden
centres and DIY stores.
- Stand clay pots on a towel which has one end submerged in a large bowl of
water.
- Buy a few packs of watering spikes which release water, drip-by-drip, into the
soil. Some come with 650ml globes, others can be fitted with your own
plastic bottles. Can provide enough water for up to three weeks,
depending on the size of the pot and types of plants. From garden
centres and www.harrodhorticultural.com, www.gardeningleisure.co.uk and
www.organiccatalogue.com.
- Drag pots to a shady spot, north-facing if possible. Inside a cool garage is
OK for a couple of days, or create temporary shade by fixing some
fine-meshed plastic netting to a couple of canes.
- Wrap clay pots in polythene to stop transpiration. The paler the polythene,
the less heat is absorbed.
- Stand pots in large saucers; before you leave, water the pot, then fill the
saucer to about 2in.
- After watering, mulch the surface of the compost with almost anything – garden
compost, hedge clippings, weighted down newspaper.
- Cut back rampant bedding plants in pots and beds to reduce water consumption.
They will soon regrow.
- Soak pots generously 24 hours before you go, and again at the last minute if
you can.
- Give at least a canful (direct on the centre of the plant, not over the entire
root system) to any flagging plants in borders, especially
rhododendrons, bamboos and hydrangeas.
(Steven Anderton, The Times)
Week 2:
What to do this week:
- To keep lavender bushes neat and tidy, remove the spent flower spikes but do
not cut back into the old wood as it will not regrow
- Check Michaelmas daisies and support any plants that are heavily laden with
developing flowers
- Fast-growing hedges, such as privet and lonicera nitida, can be clipped now
- Start cutting the flower spikes of gladioli for indoor decoration
- Take semi-ripe cuttings of shrubs, including hollies and pieris.
(Neil Wormald, Sunday Times)
Weekend tips:
- If you clip holly and yew now they should get by on one clipping for the
year, although you may have a few whiskers to remove at the end of
September. Other evergreens that just need to be kept roughly in shape can
be clipped now, too: phillyrea, pittosporum, Osmanthus heterophyllus, etc
Don’t forget to deadhead dahlias. When a stem has spent all its flowers at
the top, cut it down to a side branch where further buds are showing
- Busy lizzies becoming hollow at the centre can be cut back, fed and watered
so they bush out again
- If you want to treat lawn weeds with selective weedkillers, now is the time
to do it, while the nights are still warm and the soil has not begun to
cool. Leave it much later and it will not be nearly so effective. But the
lawn must be moist; if it is still in drought, wait
- If you have enjoyed fuchsias, pelargoniums, shrubby salvias and plectranthus
in pots this summer, but do not want to keep big pots of them indoors in
winter, now is the time to start taking cuttings. Once rooted and put into
small individual pots, they should be kept cool, dryish and in full light.
If you prefer, overwinter them as cuttings together in a pot
- Clumps of the little pink daisy Erigeron karvinskyanus in paving cracks may
be looking rank and shabby. With a pair of secateurs snip off all the top
growth down to half an inch. It will soon reclothe itself and begin
flowering again. You can do the same with yellow Corydalis lutea, another
plant at its best in paving cracks and at the foot of walls.
(Steven Anderton, The Times)
Week 3:
What to do this week:
- Start ordering daffodil bulbs for planting next month
- Begin harvesting early maturing apple varieties
- Propagate tiger lilies by gathering the purple-black bulbils and sowing them
(½in deep and 2in apart) in seed trays. Leave to germinate in a cold frame
- Take softwood cuttings of pelargoniums
- Plant rooted strawberry runners in the garden.
(Neil Wormald, Sunday Times)
Weekend tips:
- I wrote recently about eliminating scarlet lily beetles by catching them in
a dish as they leap down off the leaves. Mrs S. Pennant Jones says that her
beetles manage to scramble out of the dish while she is chasing the next
one, so she puts water in the dish and can collect several at once before
stamping on them. Cunning, eh? Mind you, what’s wrong with catching them in
the hand? They don’t bite
- Keep plants properly dead-headed: heleniums, roses, dahlias, osteospermums,
the lot. Softer bedding plants need dead-heading too – marigolds, petunias,
nasturtiums, morning glories and so on
- You can take tip cuttings of hydrangeas now, so if you see one you like, beg
a piece. Take a 3-4in non-flowering shoot, cut through at a leaf joint.
Pinch off lower leaves, dip the end in rooting hormone, and push it into a
pot of compost covered with polythene. It’ll root in no time
- Keep an eye open for ivy getting under gutters and into the slates, and cut
it back before its hold is too strong
- When tying in shrubs and woody climbers on walls (ceanothus, climbing
hydrangea, wistaria, etc) try to tie the stems on to the front of a trellis,
so it cannot later prise it off the wall. Never tuck leaders behind
pipework, however tempting.
(Steven Anderton, The Times)
Week 4:
What to do this week:
- Propagate lavender by taking semi-ripe cuttings
- Once they have finished flowering, prune rambling roses
- Harvest aubergines when they are about 6in-8in in length
- Protect late-fruiting strawberries from slugs and birds
- Check guttering on a regular basis and clear out fallen leaves and other
debris.
(Neil Wormald, Sunday Times)
Weekend tips:
- Lavenders need dead-heading to keep them dense in future years. Snip back
each flower stem to a strong pair of buds and the plant will be grey and
dense again in a few weeks. Use shears if you must, or if you have yards of
lavender hedge. But for a cleaner, fresher finish use secateurs
- Potted lilies may have finished flowering, but don’t forget them. Give them
a dose of liquid feed every couple of weeks to build up the bulbs for next
year. Stand them somewhere cool and semi-shaded
- While you are about it, give a dose of fortnightly feed (tomato food or
similar) to potted agapanthus, fuchsias and late-flowering clematis
- Keep dead-heading anything that will produce a continuing succession of
flowers – diascias, penstemons, salvias
- Beech and hornbeam hedges have come to the end of their second spurt of
growth and can be clipped now if you like, to restore a little linearity
among the jungle of late summer
- Lawns which were frazzled by the drought can be gently fed to restore them,
so long as they have since been soaked by rains; otherwise wait.
(Steven Anderton, The Times)
Click
here to go to January
Click
here to go to February
Click
here to go to March
Click
here to go to April
Click
here to go to May
Click
here to go to June
Click
here to go to July
Click
here to go to September
Click
here to go to October
Click
here to go to November
Click
here to go to December
