It’s going to be hot this month if you’re lucky, so take advantage of it because summer will be fading away. You’ll probably notice the lack of rain in August, which means you’ll need to work overtime to keep your garden looking great. Every month is always full of jobs you’ll have to do and gardening in August is no exception. Take a quick look at the most important things you should be focusing on first.
Gardening calendar: Gardening in August
Flowers, Trees, and Shrubs
1 – Wisteria and Climbing Shrubs: After your wisteria and climbing shrubs have flowered you’ll want to start pruning them straight away. This will help them look even better in the future.
2 – Deadhead Flowering Plants: When you’re gardening in August you’ll spend a lot of your time deadheading flowering plants. It will ensure your garden stays bright as we move quickly into autumn.
3 – Start Collecting Seeds: You can begin to store in your garden shed all the seeds you collect from the hardy annuals and perennials in your garden. They’ll be handy when you need to sow them later on once autumn arrives.
4 – Protect Ornamental Grasses: Take care of the flowerheads on your ornamental grasses instead of getting rid of them. They’ll give you something nice to look at later in the year.
5 – Nurturing Hanging Baskets: It might only be a few months until your hanging baskets will lose their beautiful looks. You can delay the process by continuing to feed, water, and deadhead them.
Fruits and Vegetables
1 – Pruning Your Fruits: It’s now the time to prune any of your fruits trained as restricted forms, which is usually apples and pears. Do it before the end of the month because growth will have already slowed down.
2 – Harvesting Your Vegetables: Sweetcorn and other vegetables you’ve got growing will be ready to harvest, so you’ll now get to taste them after looking forward to eating them for ages.
3 – Cutting Back Raspberry Canes: After your raspberries have been harvested in the summer you’ll have a lot of empty canes left. Keep cutting them back as new ones appear throughout the month.
4 – Rooted Strawberry Runners: Strawberries can be propagated now, so don’t leave it until the end of August to complete the job. Place your strawberry runners into pots of compost after they’ve been pushed into the beds.
5 – Planting Out Cabbages: You can plant out spring and winter cabbages this month. It’s especially helpful to plant the spring cabbages because there won’t be a lot of other vegetables ready when they are.
General Garden Maintenance
1 – Don’t Stop Watering: You’ll need to spend a lot of time with your garden hose watering everything, especially containers and new plants. Just make sure you try to use as much recycled water as possible to help the environment.
2 – Look After Your Pond: It’s likely been hot for a while now, so you should check the pond level in case it needs to be filled up. Check the water level in any other garden water features you have too.
3 – Feed Your Soil: Start to feed your soil with lots of green manures to help its structure and give it the valuable nutrients it needs. They will also help to smother any weeds trying to pop through.
4 – Damp Down Greenhouse: You’ve been ventilating your greenhouse for a while now, which you should keep on doing. Also think about dampening your greenhouse when it’s boiling to maintain humidity levels.
5 – Dealing with Your Lawn: Begin to dig over the parts of your lawn you want to be grassed over once autumn arrives. It will give weeds a chance to regrow and you’ll be able to get rid of them before seeding.
