Gardening jobs this month: August

What to do in the garden in August, from the gardening experts of Prima and Country Living

From Prima gardening expert Ann-Marie Powell:

■ Feed plants in hanging baskets and pots once a week with liquid fertiliser.

■ Prune wisteria growths back to five or six buds.

■ Put up bird scarers or cover your fruit bushes with netting.

■ Keep the vegetable garden well watered.

■ Deadhead roses, perennials and annuals. Prune rambler roses when they've finished flowering.

■ Peg down runners from strawberries into pots of compost buried beside the parent plant.

■ Keep cropping runner beans to encourage growth.

■ Cut back the old flower spikes from lavender, taking about one inch of foliage, too, to encourage dense and bushy plants.

■ Pick early apples as they start to ripen.

 

■ Take cuttings of sage, rosemary and the curry plant, Helichrysum italicum.

■ Ripen onions by bending them over at their neck.

■ Keep ponds topped up with water, ideally rainwater from your water butt.

■ Check compost heaps aren't getting too dry - sprinkle them with water if necessary.

■ Prune rambling roses as soon as they've finished flowering.

 

■ Give evergreen hedges their last trim.

 

■ Hoe and hand-weed every day to keep weeds at bay.

■ Lift, divide and replant any overgrown clumps of bearded iris, then water lightly  

 

From Country Living gardening editor Stephanie Donaldson:

 

■ Sow green manures on any bare ground in the vegetable garden to keep the soil covered and lock in fertility.

 

■ Watch for brown rot on ripening fruit - pick those affected and dispose of them before it spreads to others.

 

■ Ensure a good crop of flowers on your agapanthus next year by watering them well and applying a high-potassium tomato feed now to encourage bud formation.  

 

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