Gardening Jobs For August

August plants

• Salvia x jamensis
• Kniphofia (Red Hot Poker)
• Japanese Anemone Queen Charlotte
• Eurybia macrophylla (Michaelmas daisy)
• Crocosmia

(all available at Palmers)

August Jobs Checklist

• Water garden thoroughly & less often
  
• Water planters & hanging baskets daily
  
• Feed border perennials
  
• Plant autumn & spring flowering bukbs
  
• Collect seeds from hardy annuals
  
• Trim garden hedges
  
• Mow your lawn frequently
  
• Harvest soft fruit & berries
  
• Harvest vegetables & earth up celery
  
• Harvest onions, shallots & garlic
• Keep an eye out for common garden pests

General Maintenance

• top of the list, with this warm weather, is watering! If possible set up an automatic watering system for vegetables, borders and containers
• keep on weeding. Little and often will make the job much easier. Remember that weeds are using up valuable moisture from the ground

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Flowers and Plants

• feed your plants
• plant out your autumn flowering bulbs
• you can also plant out your spring flowering bulbs now; Tulips, Narcissus, Alliums and Crocus
• cut back your perennials and remove any dead flower heads
• for Roses, cut the stem down, just breaking off the flowerheads will leave them vulnerable to infection.
• trim back your Lavender, but don’t cut too far into the old wood
• try your hand at sowing your own flowers. Collect the seeds from your hardy annuals and perennials. Just put them in a papper bag and leave somehwere cool and dark to dry
• keep your hedges under control with a good trim

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Lawns

• mow, mow, mow
• if you are planning a new lawn, now is the time to start preparing

Fruit

• keep watering and weeding
• pick your berries! You should be seeing an abundance this month. If you have too many, then freeze them. You can tell fruit is ripe if it comes off easily with a little twist, or if you notice a few on the ground
• prune your berries and currants
• keep your tomatoes watered regularly, this will avoud blossom end rot (the dark patches on the bottom ends). Remove side shoots and lower leaves from tomatoes to allow light and air to get to the crop. Feed them with a high potash fertiliser
• cut off the leaves of your strawberry plants to within three inches of the crown and plant new ones

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Vegetables

• water and weed
• harvest your vegetables; onions, shallots and garlic should be harvested when their necks turn papery brown. Leave them to dry until their tops rustle and then store
• earth up your celery and raise your marrows off the ground to prevent rotting

Don’t Forget The Birds

• keep supplying them with fresh food and water
• check that there is not mouldy food on their tables
• we have a full range of seeds and feeders available at Palmers

Now start enjoying your garden!