PERFECT TI T
If you’re planning to get your garden growing again, now is the ideal month, says Hannah Genders.
hese are a few of the jobs I’ll be doing in my gar- den this September, which is really a time to get going again in the garden after the summer and it’s the perfect month for gardening projects.
Beans
Lavender: I have lavender growing at the top of a low wall outside the back door; it’s quite common lavender called Lavendula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’ and tends to keep a neat habit and flowers for a good long period from May to late August. The flowers are fading now and it’s the ideal time to trim them off. With any lavender, a regular prune is ideal – cut off the flowering stalks but never cut into the old woody part of the plant or you will kill it. I just trim off the flower stalks and save them, which also keeps the plant neat for the winter.
Raspberries: Autumn raspberries will be fruiting now; it’s the summer ones that fruited in June that can be pruned. Cut back the old canes that had fruit on them during the summer and tie in the
new tender shoots, which will give you raspberries next year. Then give the plants a good mulch at the base with either well-rotted garden compost or manure.
Meadows: I have a small meadow area around our swimming pond and it’s been fabulous during the sum- mer but is now at the end. Late August or early September is the right time to
cut back a meadow, once it has gone to seed – and mine has, apart from the yarrow that I will leave until it’s dropped all its seed for next year. Cut back hard and rake out all the cut material so that no extra nutrient is added to the base of the plants by having rotting or- ganic matter there.
Beans: My climbing French beans have pretty much finished but my runner beans are still going strong. I’ll keep picking them but only the small tender ones; if they get too large I leave them for the pods to seed up and use them like borlotti beans in stews. The variety I’ve grown this year is the same as last
Lavender 50 The Village September 2017
year and it’s called ‘The Czar’. It is ideal for this; tender young beans and plenty of them, followed by beans
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