As July comes to a close, August begins. The heat dies down a little, and you may be thinking that the time you need to spend in your garden is dying down too as your garden prepares to head into autumn – but don’t be fooled! Your garden needs you just as much as ever, so let’s discuss some jobs that are ideal to do in your garden before August is over.
1. Pruning
This is the time to prune and deadhead your plants. Start with your flowers – find any blooms that are looking a little dull or faded and trim them back to a leaf or two underneath. Doing this will give your plant the best chance of growing back bigger, better and more beautiful next spring. In addition, cut back any leaves that have dark spots on them, especially roses. Black spot disease is a serious condition for plants and has been notably worse in regions of the UK this year than in previous years.
Additionally, if you grow apples or pears in a restricted manner (as in, not as a tree), now is the best time to prune those plants so they can get the most out of the sun before it goes away.
It’s also best to research the plants you have in your garden and find out if any of them have any specific care tips or needs during this time. For example, raspberries only grow on year-old stems, so if you grow these in your garden and collect a summer harvest, these stems should be trimmed back to make way for new growth for next year’s raspberries.
3. Watering!
2. Harvesting
If you’re the type to grow your own fruit, vegetables, herbs or anything else that may need harvesting, you should check if any of them have harvesting periods that fall during the late summer or early autumn, and check on them regularly throughout the month to see if it’s time. Don’t forget to be collecting seeds from your plants around now if that’s something you want to do.
Apples, pears and raspberries may have summer crops, depending on the exact species you are growing, but you may also find its time for other crops such as celery, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach and a whole lot more. Again, remember to research exactly what it is you have in your garden so you have a good idea of what to expect and what to look out for.
The heat may be dying down, but not by much! As the years get hotter overall, now is not the time to be relying on autumn rainfall to handle the watering of your garden for you. Make sure to keep your plants well-watered, using grey recycled water where applicable. Consider getting yourself a method of storing rainwater for when the gloomier weather does hit, so you have a good amount ready for this exact purpose come next year’s spring and summer.
If you’re planning on going away at all over the autumn and winter months, consider getting help to keep up with the watering, or even having an irrigation system installed.
Don’t leave out your hanging baskets and pots, and you might want to keep an eye on any water features or ponds you have in case they start to dry up a little in the heat too. In Yorkshire, we’re getting average high temperatures of over 20 degrees still, which is plenty of cause problems for your garden if you aren’t keeping on top of it.
Even as summer draws to a close and the benefit you get from your garden lessens a little, it’s vital to remember that all the love you put into your garden will be paid back in return, as everything you do now helps a happier and healthier garden grow back next year. Your relationship with your garden works just like any other – the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
