August is the first month of harvesting your hard work. It is also the time to begin tidying up your garden as the early-summer-growing plants finish flowering.
Harvesting
If you have grown vegetables, you may already be picking your sweetcorn, tomatoes, peas, beans, courgettes and other greenhouse crops.
As pumpkins and butternut squashes come on, you can put straw or old tiles under the ripening vegetables to stop them rotting on the soil surface.
Pick sweet peas regularly to encourage new flowers to form.
Supporting
Tie in or support tall late-summer perennials to stop them leaning or falling over.
Pruning back
Lavender and rosemary will have finished flowering by now, so lightly trim them by cutting off the new soft growth, but try not to cut into the older brown wood. Trim off excess foliage from strawberries once they’ve finished fruiting.
Prune back shrubs that have finished flowering. Cut back established Wisterias, trimming new long growth back to between 4 and 7prs of leaves and pinching out the tips of very young shoots.
Continue trimming fast growing hedges to keep them in check.
Watering
Water all pots, baskets and flower beds well in dry spells, ideally from collected rain water or with used bathwater. Dark coloured patio pots will out more quickly, so may need watering twice a day in very hot weather.
Mowing
Mow the lawn weekly but raise the blades if the weather is hot and dry to prevent the grass turning brown.
Relaxing!
Although there are always things to do in your garden, remember to find time to relax and enjoy it whenever you can.
Alpington and Yelverton 