The holiday is over and it’s back to the garden! There is still some warmth and growth continues. Now is the time to start tidying up the beds, reducing the growth of hebaceous plants that are looking untidy and dead-heading plants that have finished flowering. Dead-heading dahlias will promote further blooms, and deadheading begonias will prevent fungal disease.
Rampant climbers should be pruned back, train climbing roses and prune loganberries, cutting out all the old canes that have borne this year’s fruit and tie up the new canes which will bear next year’s fruit like a fan.
Unfortunately my loganberry bed is full of bindweed, but now is a good time to spray these troublesome weeds- dandelions and ground elder too- with weedkiller containing glyphosate.
Continue to cut the lawns, they seem never to have stopped growing this year, and now is a good time to do repairs, as it is still warm enough for seed to germinate. If needed the lawn can be top dressed now too – it will make it grow even faster, but oh it will look good!
Sow hardy annuals- Nigella, Calendula, Stocks, Godetias,Cornflowers, and Salpiglossis. Antirrhinum too which are really bienniels. In the vegetable garden winter lettuce and spinach can be sown. Feed leeks. Sweet peas can be sown and in milder areas towards the end of the month and left out all winter. If sown now they will have chance to establish a root system before the winter cold, and they will produce lovely early blooms. They will need some winter protection in colder regions. In my garden they need protecting from mice, slugs and snails and then the birds!
Begin the planting of spring bulbs- Narcissus and Tulipa and complete the planting of strawberries. As Gladioli begin to die down they should be lifted and dried off before storing in a cool ventilated frost free place.
Prepare to harvest and store apples and pears. The early varieties do not seem to keep so well. Harvest french and runner beans, and sweet corn - before the cobs turn yellow. Pick tomatoes. Lift and dry onions then store in a dry well ventilated place. Lift and store carrots and beetroot. Lift the maincrop potatoes when the skin has set. Gather herbs for winter drying.
Lift and divide perennials and take cuttings of tender perennials such as pelargonium and Fuchsia, rose and lavender. Remember to leave a heel on the lavender cuttings and heel the rose cuttings in a moist sheltered spot and heel them in at a depth of 4-6 inches.
Prepare the ground for spring cabbages and as the summer bedding plants begin to look tired replace with spring flowering plants and bulbs. Keep the hoe going and in the strawberry bed this will help encourage growth to build up new crowns. Finally keep a vigilant eye out for infestations of aphid and caterpillar and treat accordingly. It is remarkable how quickly a crop can be decimated in a very short time!
The Gardening Year