I love watching the seasons come and go and you can really see this happening quite fast in the garden now as the late summer flowering plants begin to explode into colour – those fantastic eye-catching reds you can’t miss of the Crocosmias and Heleniums. Rudbeckias and Sunflowers are starting to flower too and Sedums are slowly catching up.
I’m really thrilled to see the Morning Glory I was given starting to flower – the flowers are enormous!
It is a terrific time for scent – my lilies filled my whole front garden with it, and there is Jasmine too now as well as a less used plant Trachelospermum which is gorgeously strongly scented but easier to tame than Jasmine and is one of my favourites.
It’s also a fantastic period for cut flowers as Dahlias are blooming away and Sweet Peas too, which benefit from being deflowered so snip away!
With all this excitement of plants flowering all over the garden there is an end of summer raggedy look creeping in – partly thanks to the battering spells of rain we’ve had but mostly because plants are dying back and just need to be cut back to get things feeling fresh again.
I’ve had a lovely month of seeing my flowerbed designs finally all planted up and am enjoying watching the plants settling in. Plants need a lot of care if they’re going to establish strongly and the sooner you begin the better. I give my flowerbeds copious amounts of water, apply liquid feed and a good layer of mulch.
I love the process of going through the bed and deadheading, it can feel like a daunting job at first but after a while you get in the flow and time passes so quickly! It’s great to know it’s prolonging the flowering period of your plants too. You know you’ve been deadheading too long if you catch yourself talking to the plants!
Happy Gardening!
Jobs for August:
– Divide up irises
– In cool, wet spells divide up plants
– It’s a great time to increase your stock by taking cuttings and layering plants
– Deadhead
– Keep pots and hanging baskets well watered
– Take cuttings
– Collect seeds (especially poppy seeds)
– Remove caterpillars, red lily beetles and aphids (little green flies)
Weed, weed, weed!