With spring just around the corner, it is a great time to get the garden tools out of the shed and get ahead and start on planning and creating your fabulous spring garden. It’s time to start thinking about preparing and planning for spring planting, including sprouting your seed potatoes to ensure a Christmas harvest. August is also the perfect time for a winter tidy up – clip the hedges, edges and prune a selection of fruit trees.
GARDEN HIGHLIGHTS
PLUMS, EVERGREEN AZALEAS, CAMELLIAS, JAPONICAS, DECIDUOUS MAGNOLIAS, EARLY RHODODENDRONS AND MANY SPRING BULBS.
ORNAMENTAL GARDEN
Plant
Where soil is beginning to warm up, plant out well-hardened seedlings of antirrhinum, calendula, polyanthus, primula and viola. Sow direct: alyssum, calendula, candytuft, cornflower, dianthus, larkspur, linaria, sweetpea, virginian stock and wallflower. In perennial borders, plants not dealt with in the autumn may be divided and replanted now and new plantings made (not gerberas). If soil is not too wet, plant spring-flowering shrubs and conifers and move shrubs wrenched in autumn.
Prune
Complete all rose pruning before growth starts.
Fertilise
For exhibition roses feed with rose fertiliser or manure pellets, placing food under a deep organic mulch. Give liquid feeds to bedding displays. Feed shrubs with either compost, pelleted manure or a mix of blood and bone and potash (8 parts of B and B to 1 part of potash). For rhododendrons and azaleas add some peat. Cover over with mulch.
Watch for Slugs and Snails
EDIBLE GARDEN
Plant
At the beginning of the month plant: Peas (early), spinach (prickly seeded). From mid-month plant: Beets (red and silver), cabbage (early ballhead – plants), carrots. Cauliflower (all-year-round), lettuce, onions (PLK and spring – plants or seed), and potatoes.
Prune
Complete all winter pruning without delay.
Fertilise
Keep vegetables growing with liquid feeds. Complete feeding of dwarf and young fruit trees, citrus and soft fruits, using compost, pelleted manure or fruit tree fertiliser, always cover with a layer of mulch.
Things to do
Spray, with copper fungicide, all dormant trees before leaf break and any citrus with leaf or fruit spots. At the beginning of the month set potatoes to sprout in a light, warm area. Dig in cover crops as they come into bud. Spray winter cabbages, cauliflowers and broad beans with cooper fungicide against leaf spot and downy mildew.
GARDEN MAINTENANCE
Lawn care
Lawns not on a compost regime need fertiliser. Apply evenly over the surface. Dress mossy lawns with iron sulphate and rake out the moss when it dies.
Rose care
Attend to pruning and mulching. Watch for aphids on young growth and spray and wash off with a hose.
Things to do
Tidy borders, thinning new shoots on perennials where necessary. Gently cultivate soil around flowering bulbs to aerate it and remove weeds.
Need assistance
Get in touch with the team at Lawn King.
