Providing this month’s tips is Pete Brownless Nursery Supervisor at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Garden tips for August
August is a good time of year to take stock, sit back and enjoy your garden. But there are still some jobs that you can be getting on with. Look for: areas you would like to develop; plant combinations that you particularly like and want more of; and plants that are struggling and may be better moved.
HIDDEN GEM
The Hidden Gardens in Glasgow will hold a ‘day of community, unity and change’ on 19 July, a day after International Mandela Day, to mark the links between the city and the late Nelson Mandela. The event in Pollockshields, will highlight volunteering opportunities in the local community and will include singing, face painting, garden tours and a plant sale.
www.thehiddengardens.org.uk
Stirling’s gardens Carlton Coach House and a home on
Drummond Place were among the new sites in Stirling taking place in this year’s Scotland’s Gardens open day on 15 June. The courtyard garden at Carlton Coach House featured shrubs and herbaceous borders to create discreet spaces within a compact setting, while the garden on Drummond Place created herbaceous borders using plants from Stirling Open Gardens’ plant stalls.
www.scotlandsgardens.org
Keep a watchful eye out for weeds – a little weeding on a regular basis is much better that it becoming a major task. Hoeing in the morning will give the weeds the rest of the day to wither in the summer sun. Watering is vitally important – well packed hanging baskets and containers may need watering twice a day. New plants will also need watering until they become properly established. Remember to top up your pond to account for evaporation. If you have fish, use a dechlorinator to make tap water safe for them. Tomatoes will get blossom-end rot if they are not kept well watered. Remember to keep feeding on a regular basis to keep plants growing strongly.
Your vegetable garden is likely to be at its most productive. Vegetables often taste best and are at their most tender if picked young, so make good use of your deep freeze to store as much as you can. Regular harvesting also prompts many crops to produce more. Remember to leave space for your ice cube trays, packed full of herb clippings. Cool dry places are invaluable to store onions, shallots and garlic. Harvest them on a dry day, as their leafy tops fall over and begin to wither.
Soft fruit can be made into jams, jellies and conserves. It is ripe and ready to harvest when the fruit comes away with a gentle twist. After they have finished fruiting, summer raspberries, gooseberries,
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN ARBORETUM PL, EDINBURGH TEL: 0131 248 2909
WWW.RBGE.ORG.UK
WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 139
redcurrants, and blackcurrants can be pruned to encourage growth to flower next spring.
Tidy up your hedges as most birds will have fi nished nesting by now. Lavender and rosemary benefi t from a haircut after fl owering to keep their growth dense and compact. Dead head any plants that have fi nished fl owering – this may provoke a second fl owering in many plants. Check for seed heads and save some in labelled paper bags for sowing later. Remember to cut back to leaf joints and try to do this to varying heights, this will give your pruning a more natural rather than ‘clipped’ appearance.
It’s a frightening thought but now is a good time to start preparing for Christmas. Prepared hyacinths can be
started off in a cool place. Plant the bulbs in a free draining compost, covering them to two thirds of their height. Use pots with drainage holes that can be placed in more decorative containers topped with lawn moss or dried leaves for a festive display. If you managed to keep last year’s poinsettia alive then now is the time to start keeping it in the dark for 14 hours a day to encourage it to produce red bracts again, remember to bring it out into strong light for the remaining ten.
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