Top Tips for an Amazing Garden in August!

August has arrived, a month for appreciating your garden at its finest! Here are our top gardening tips for making the most of the last month of summer while preparing your garden for the cooler months ahead…

Start ‘green manuring’

Using fast-growing plants to cover any bare soil will help to ward off weeds and improve your soil structure for future growing! This is an eco-friendly method of manuring. For the best results, try plants like ryegrass, clovers or field beans.

Deadheading the bedding

Keep your bedding, borders and baskets blooming into Autumn with regular deadheading, this will also prevent messy self-seeding!

Pinch out the plants

Pinch out the tips of your runner beans once they’ve climbed to the top of their support to encourage side shooting. Pinching the top of tomato plants will also get your already formed tomatoes growing quicker and bigger!

Weeding the patio!

Pour boiling water on any weeds poking through the cracks of your paving, the weeds will wilt and die in days!

Stock up for Spring

Start to plan and order the spring-flowering bulbs ready for planting, and perennials in time to settle them in before the cold weather comes.

Saving seeds

Collect the seeds from your favourite plants to use later. Choose a dry day for collection and make sure the seed heads have not opened and shed their valuable contents yet!

Sow your annuals

Sow any hardy wildflowers or annuals such as poppies or cornflowers directly into your borders for colourful flowering nice and early next year!

Harvest the herbs

Start to pick your herbs for fresh use or drying, you will find they have a richer flavour if you pick them before the plants start flowering.

Perfect pruning

Prune your wisteria after flowering to stop out of control growth! Cut down any side shoots on the main branch to around five leaves from the stem.

Tomato time!

Harvest any juicy tomatoes that come off easily when you lift and twist them. But act quickly, leaving ripe fruits on the plant will cause them to split and rot!

Visit us at one of our centres at Midgley, Wentworth and Brigg to pick up everything you need for your garden in August.