Well as I write this today, it’s raining hard. Now I know this suits me as a flower farmer but its not good for gardening in. Below is a list of jobs in the garden for August – you may need to dodge the rain showers but do enjoy this month as we head towards the Autumn.
'Just call me Charlie Dimmock' - Photocredit: Pixabay
- Collect seeds as they ripen, from plants such as aquilegias, sweet peas and nigella. They need to be dry to be collected so please do wait for a dry day.
- Pick any flowers you want to dry – Nigella, Poppy Seed Heads, Wheat, Ammi, Lavender – the trick is to collect these before they go over. There is an episode on this on my podcast The Cut Flower Podcast. Do let me know how you get on.
- Deadhead dahlias and other perennials to encourage a constant display of flowers. The trick here is to deadhead the cone shaped tops of the dahlias as these are the spent ones.
'Don't forget to water me!' - Photocredit: Pixabay
- Keep pots flowering by watering and deadheading regularly and feeding fortnightly. Remember the nutrients in the compost don’t last long.
- Start to sow hardy annuals to provide early summer colour next year.
- Remove any spent hardy annuals if you don't want them to self-seed such as cornflowers, nigellas and scabious.
- Put your order in for your bulbs to plant in the Autumn – Tulips, ranunculi’s and narcissi.