The Garden in August 2024- ‘Feeling Good about Gardening’
August, the time of high summer and holidays, is also a time of transition between the ending of summer and the onset of autumn. This doesn’t mean, however, that beds and borders need to be dull and fading as there are lots of late-flowering perennials to make a fine show as well as colourful annuals, or plants which we treat as annuals, having many more weeks of flowering to come with which to enhance our gardens.
Looking back through past August blogs I see that in 2020 I was concentrating on our own garden in West Wales and recommending some great ‘August’ plants. In 2021 the blog came from the gardens at Aberglasney and in 2022 I was singing the praises of five excellent summer plants- Buddleja, Hydrangea, Echinacea, Erodium and Helenium. Finally in 2023 the August blog looked at preparing our gardens for spring colour which was partly about the bulbous plants which are planted in late summer/early autumn, early spring flowering biennials and perennials, plus some early flowering shrubs, climbers and trees.
For my first ‘August plant that I wouldn’t want to be without’ I have chosen the Dahlia and clearly, I am in good company as the Old Railway Line are running their ‘Dahlia Festival’ from July 23rd to August 4th. There will no doubt be a fine selection to choose from and during the festival there is 20% off the price of any Dahlia so don’t miss out! By the way, huge congratulations to the Old Railway Line as once again they have been selected as ‘Garden Centre of the Year’, this time in a much larger region of the Midlands, Wales and the West. Well done to all the management and staff who make this place such a pleasure to visit. The Dahlia is truly a wonderful summer plant which I highlighted in a blog back in July 2022. Named after Anders Dahl, a Swedish botanist, they love two things – sun and heat- so this year has perhaps not been the best for them so far until the last few days but they will continue to flower well into the autumn until the first frost kills of the top growth but not, of course, the tubers beneath. Traditionally in this country gardeners have lifted and stored the tubers overwinter in a frost-free place but increasingly are leaving them in the ground and protecting them with a good covering of an organic mulch. Dahlias come in two basic forms- tall and dwarf- with the former ideally suited to bringing their vibrant colours to mixed beds and borders and the latter for use in summer containers and at the front of beds and borders. Their flowers not only come in a wide range of colours but also in a variety of very different shapes including single, waterlily, anemone, pompom, ball, cactus, orchid and peony. In addition to a sunny spot Dahlias also benefit from a fertile soil and liquid, high potash feeds to help flowering as well as the removal of spent flowers so that energy is not wasted on seed production. A rounded bud is yet to flower but a pointed bud has finished flowering and needs to be cut back to a healthy leaf below.
Looking around our own garden in late July I have picked out four more of my particular favourites at this time of year- Hydrangea, Buddleja, Japanese Anemone and, perhaps more surprisingly, Betony. Our Hydrangeas have been in flower since June with stronger colours developing each day it seems and have clearly enjoyed all the rain we have had in the past few months. We have a mixture of Mopheads, Lace caps and Paniculatas with the latter only just beginning to show their white and pink colours. What I love about them all is that the flower head colours not only build up over many weeks culminating in a wonderful display at this time of year but that they also fade away so beautifully and gracefully over a long period. Even when they are totally brown they still have a beauty all of their own and we let them remain on the plants until they are finally removed in April to begin the cycle all over again.
Our pinkish-blue Lacecap and a true blue Lacecap with a white eye which starts off white
For sheer flower power in summer it is hard to beat the Buddleja in my opinion. This year we pruned our main plant very hard in order to reshape it and to restrict its size a little in what is probably already an over-crowded garden. For this reason it has only just come into flower colour, in sharp contrast to the unpruned or lightly pruned shrubs around our area which have been flowering beautifully for some time. However, now it has started to show some colour it will continue to flower for many weeks and will hopefully attract butterflies and other insects which I have to say have been in short supply over the first part of the summer.
The Japanese Anemones mainly Anemone x hybrida and A. hupehensis, seem to have come early this year but they are always welcome in our garden whenever they come into flower with their cheerful, open flowers in various shades of pink and also white with yellow centres. They won’t last anywhere near as long as the Hydrangeas but for me they always deserve a place in the late summer and early autumn garden.
‘September Charm’ with a dark pink Hydrangea and A. x hybrida ‘Serenade’ full of promise!
My fifth choice, Betony (Stachys officinalis), is another plant much loved by bees and butterflies. The square stems put Betony clearly in the Labiatae family along with the nettle but without the sting! They form rosettes of ovate, scalloped and wrinkled, mid-green leaves from which rise quite tall, upright stems and spikes of reddish-purple or pink flowers from early summer to early autumn. The individual flowers are tubular, 2-lipped and hooded and as such the plant can be regarded as the poor man’s orchid! We grow the species plant which does seed reasonably gently around but there is also a good cultivar S. off. ‘Rosea Superba’.
Betony, Stachys officinalis and around our pond with a blue Geranium
Recently I came across an article by a GP in Kent, Dr. Richard Claxton, which got me thinking again about all the benefits which we get from working in our gardens. I’m sure that we all believe that time spent in the garden brings big dividends for our wellbeing even if we are not sure about the reasons why. According to Dr. Claxton, three hours in the garden is the equivalent to one in the gym and I know which I would prefer! This is particularly good news for those of us who have never really felt the urge to get down to the gym and much prefer to do exercise in the privacy of our own garden and in ‘old friends of clothes’ rather than unforgiving Lycra! The result Is that as a group, gardeners are much less likely to be overweight and their healthier life styles and ‘grow your own’ diet is less likely to lead to diabetes. They are also less likely to suffer from dementia, have lower levels of stress and higher levels of wellbeing. Part of this, of course, is due to the physical exercise involved in the routine work in any garden (as long as we don’t do too much too quickly!) as is being in the fresh air and sunlight to help boost vitamin D levels. In addition, we now know due to recent research that contact with the soil gives us higher levels of serotonin in the brain which lifts our moods, that a spell in the garden leads to lower levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), blood pressure and heart rate but also, perhaps amazingly, higher levels of tumour-killing white blood cells. These are all compelling reasons for getting into our plots as much as we can but for most of us I think the benefits are at a much simpler level. We can lose ourselves in the numerous and varied tasks of weeding, sowing, potting on, pricking out, dead heading and watering. We can also work with nature in creating a beautiful and enjoyable space, to grow some of our own food and to do our bit, albeit in a small way, to help wildlife and biodiversity. All these at the end of the day as the light fades and the muscles ache a little tell us that we have done well at something that we love to do and that it- gardening has done us good in return.
August is a good time to take soft wood cuttings of plants such as Pelargonium, Fuchsia and Penstemon. Not only does this increase your stock of plants largely for free but in a hard winter it also means that young plants are available in the spring to replace any winter losses. Non-flowering tip cuttings root fairly easily at this time of year due to higher temperatures than in spring but cuttings can still wilt quickly if they are not given a protective environment ie. kept out of the sun and wind and given humid conditions to reduce transpiration in a propagator, plastic bag or cut down, clear plastic drinks bottle. The rooted cuttings also need winter protection in a greenhouse, porch or windowsill but will be ready in spring for growing on in the normal way.
Continuing with this theme of plant propagation, August is also the time to start to collect seed as our summer flowering annuals, biennials and perennials come to the end of their growing seasons. Generally speaking, it is best to avoid collecting and sowing seed from cultivars (plants with a genus name, possibly a species name as well and an extra name in inverted commas) as the vast majority do not come true from seed ie. produce plants which are similar in quality and habit to their parents. On the other hand, seeds from species plants (just a genus and species name) will come true from seed although as with all seeds there will be some variation in quality and quantity of flower and growth habit. For this reason, it is worth just collecting seed from the best plants in terms of flower and health as at least one of the parents is known to be a ‘good’ plant. Collecting the seed is all a matter of timing- too soon and the seed won’t have ripened fully, too late and the seed will already be on the ground or in the stomachs of our seed eating birds and mammals! Vigilance is therefore the key, with daily inspections to look for the browning of the seed heads and the rattling of seeds inside. At this stage they can be cut off and spread out on paper-lined trays in a warm, dry, sunny place until they are fully dry. The seeds can then be extracted, any plant debris cleared away and then put in labelled, paper bags or envelopes. Seeds of early flowering plants which are ripe by early to mid-summer (June/July) such as Foxgloves can be sown straightaway as they will germinate quickly and produce plants which will overwinter in the open ground or cold frame. For later flowering plants the seed can also be sown fresh but germination will probably not take place until the next spring or the seed can be stored in a cool, dry, frost-free and dark place and sown the following spring. Of course, if all this is too much trouble we can just leave it all to nature to produce self-sown seedlings which can be left where they are for a more natural look or transplanted when large enough to other areas of the garden. This really works well for us with plants such as Forget-me-not (Myosotis), Foxglove (Digitalis), Aquilegia, Rose Campion (Lychnis) and Honesty (Lunaria) and is a wonderfully easy method of plant propagation as long as you can recognise the seedlings for what they are!
Perhaps surprisingly, August is also the time to prune certain types of plants including Wisteria, ‘trained’ fruit trees and Rambling roses. Wisterias need to be pruned for two very good reasons- firstly, to literally keep them in check and stop them from getting out of control and secondly, to encourage the production of more flowers by diverting the plant’s energy into producing flower buds rather than excessive growth. Flowering is also improved, as with most climbers, by training the main stems horizontally rather than vertically and this can be done at the same time as the August pruning. By August Wisteria plants will have produced a lot of long, leafy shoots and as a result can become rather a tangled mess! Some of these shoots, if they are growing in the ‘right’ direction, might be suitable for tying into position on the supporting structure as near to horizontal as possible to become part of the plant’s permanent framework but most need to be severely cut back to encourage flower buds to form and to regain the plant’s overall shape. Each of these shoots can be many feet long but they need to be cut back to around 6”/15cm from a main stem leaving around six leaves on this much shortened side shoot. These are the shoots that need a second prune in January when they are shortened again to leave just 2-3 buds which in time will develop into flower buds.
Late-summer is also the time to prune ‘trained’ fruit trees and bushes such as apples, pears, cherries, currants and gooseberries. Trained forms include cordons, espaliers, fans and step-overs. They are pruned in the summer, rather than the winter when most fruit pruning is carried out on untrained trees and bushes, to reduce vigour, to contain them in their often, restricted spaces, to let the sun get to the fruits to help them ripen and to concentrate the plants’ energies on fruit production. Basically, any laterals (side shoots) from the main stems need to be pruned back to just three leaves from the stem and any side shoots from what remains of the laterals pruned back to one leaf from the lateral.
Finally on pruning, this is the right time to prune Rambling roses. All the other types of rose are pruned in the spring as they flower on new shoots made between spring and summer whereas ramblers flower on side shoots which grow from long stems which grew the previous year. In mid-summer as soon as flowering is over pruning can start with the removal of any dead, damaged or diseased wood as with any sort of pruning method. Then, on older plants, up to one third of the oldest stems need cutting back either to ground level or to strong, new growth at a lower level. This is to encourage new, more vigorous shoots to grow from the base to replace the older stems and to produce flowers in years to come. Any young shoots which have grown this year should be tied into the supporting structure as near horizontal as possible in order to increase the amount of flowers and, if necessary, pruned at the tip end to restrict the growth to the framework available. Finally, all the laterals (side shoots) along these and all pre-existing long stems should be pruned back to between 2 and 4 healthy buds/leaves from the main stems. It is these short side shoots which will grow on to produce next years flowers- do not prune them off next spring!
As I mentioned last month, summer is the time to plant autumn flowering bulbs, the more obvious ones being Colchicum (Naked Ladies), Autumn Crocus (Crocus speciosus), Nerine bowdenii, Cyclamen hederifolium and the Autumn Snowflake, Leucojum autumnale. However, there are other, more exotic, plants to consider such as the beautiful pink Amarylis belladonna, the yellow Sternbergia lutea and sicula and the Tiger Flower, Tigridia pavona.
That’s all for this month but I will be back with the monthly blog and talk on September 7th ‘Into Autumn’ where I will cover amongst other things autumn lawn care, spring bulbs, taking root cuttings and pruning climbing roses.
Until then do yourselves some good by getting out into your gardens as much as you can!
Keith.