|
| Featured Products Outdoor Living Indoor Style Planting Garden Accessories Pets & Aquatics Clothing Garden Machinery |
| Armitage's Home Page Children at Armitage's Offers, Events & News Services Winter at Armitages Restaurants Gardeners Library About Us Contact Us Site Map How to Find Us |
|
|
August in the Garden |
|
The summer's in full bloom, and you'll want to spend all of your time outdoors. So why not complete some garden jobs while the sun is shining, and make sure the garden's prepared for next season. RosesRoses can look beautiful in your garden, but remember to check roses regularly for pests, blackspot and other diseases, spraying if necessary with a recommended fungicide or insecticide. Garden Games Entertain your family in the safety of your own garden with games that will turn your outdoor space into a fun playground Pruning Summer-flowering plants that have finished flowering can now be cut back and may produce further flushes of flowers. Give plants a quick pick me up after pruning by watering with a high potash liquid feed. Ericaeous Plants Rhodedendrons, Camellias and Azaleas will be setting their flower buds for next year, so it's important they never go short of water or the buds may fail next year. Feeding will also produce more and better flowers. Mulching with bark or similar products will help maintain soil moisture levels and insulate the roots from damaging high temperatures. Watering Make sure your plants produce a display to be proud of by giving them just the right amount of water they need. Well-established plants may not need frequent watering but newly planted ones, bedding plants and plants in containers will need watering regularly. Lawn Preparation September is the best time to sow a new lawn or lay turf, but it pays to prepare the area now. Beat perennial weeds by spraying with a weedkiller containing glyphosate. Once the turf has been removed, work over the soil to a depth of 20cm or 8 inches with a fork and spade, removing weed roots and large stones and incorporating compost or composted bark. Rake and level the soil, walk over it to settle it, rake again and then leave bare to allow seeds to germinate. These can they be sprayed or hoed off ready for sowing or turfing next month. Planning autumn planting In August, why not start planning a new border for Autumn. Look for plants with a long flowering period that have two or more seasons of interest with flowers, fruit, colourful stems and interesting foliage. Remember that while evergreens help bring structure and winter interest they made need livening up with deciduous plants. Use winter and spring bedding plants to increase the seasons of interest, and plant bulbs for extra splashes of colour. Vegetables The harvesting season is now in full flow, so make sure you pick crops that are ready as leaving them too long can mean they lose flavour and tenderness. Now's a good time to sow endive, radish and spring cabbage for next year, winter varieties of spinach and maincrop turnips. And after all the effort, make sure you protect your fruit and veg with fleece, small-mesh plastic netting or a fruit cage. Cuttings Although most people take cuttings from their half-hardy perennial bedding plants in September, it's a good time to take them now. It's important to get a good sized plant to survive the winter and taking cuttings now can mean if you have some failures you can have another go in September. For best results take cuttings from non-flowering shoots, but if you can't find any cut back a few stems hard first and take cuttings from the regrowth. Choose healthy shoots about 4 inches long and trim them just below the leaf. Remove leaves from the lower half of the cutting and dip the cut end in hormone rooting power or liquid. Insert four or five cuttings up to their lowest leaves in pots of moist cutting compost. Cover the pots with a polythene bag or with a propagator lid and place somewhere warm and sheltered but out of strong, direct sunlight. Keep the compost moist by spraying it. The cuttings should be ready to pot on into 3 inch pots in a couple of week. Pest Watch Pests and diseases thrive in hot weather, so check plants regularly for tell-tale signs. Mildews and red spider mite are always worse in warm, dry conditions and these can soon get out of control. Earwigs eat the leaves and flower buds on plants like clematis, dahlias and chrysanthemums, and even slugs and snails can be on the prowl at this time of year. |
| This Month in your Garden | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||