August

The Edible Garden

In warmer parts of the country quick maturing salad crops such as lettuce, rocket and radish can still be sown. Lift and pot up rooted strawberry runners.
Harvest second early potatoes, especially if the weather turns wet.
Harvest sweetcorn. Finish lifting onions, garlic and shallots. Keep picking regularly crops of quick maturing vegetables - beans, cucumbers, courgettes, tomatoes. This will stop them becoming too big and stringy, and will encourage the ripening and development of further crops.
Sow green manure crops over parts of the garden which will not be cultivated over winter. When these are dug in in early spring they improve soil texture and soil fertility. Cut back herbs which have flowered, such as marjoram, to encourage a second flush.
Continue plantings of winter brassica crops such as cabbage and cauliflower.
Check for white butterfly caterpillars and control with derris dust.
Look out for mildew on courgettes and cucumbers and spray as necessary.
 

The Flower Garden

Continue plantings of spring flowering bulbs - Freesias, daffodils, Tulips.
Keep deadheading, watering and feeding hanging baskets and planted containers to maintain them in good condition through to autumn. Prune climbIng and rambling roses which will not repeat flower once flowers have finished.
If you have roses which you know produce colourful hips, do not prune these now as the hips will provide autumn colour and food for the birds. Start cutting back the foliage and stems of flowering perennials which have already started to die back.
 

General

Give evergreen hedges a final trim.
Lavenders and Hebes can be given a tidy up by lightly trimming.
Prune wisteria and pyracantha after flowering.
Make sure early flowering autumn / winter shrubs such as Camellias and rhododendrons are well watered now as flower bud development is underway.
Start preparing ground that is to be grassed over in the autumn. Spray out any weeds with Roundup and dig over the ground.
Start topping up bird feeders and putting food out on tables.
 

What to look for in store this Month

Cistus, Hebe, Hypericum, Osmanthus, Potentilla.
Spring flowering bulbs to plant now - anemones, daffodils, jonquils, tulips, freesias.
Bulb compost and pots.
Bulb planters.
Buxus plants and other hedging.
Lavenders.