This Month - August

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Editorial

    August is a time of pause in the garden, freewheeling gently down the hill it's spent the year so far climbing up. There's still growth a-plenty happening everywhere, but it's less noticeable on most plants as they're bigger now and a few extra leaves or inches in height is less obvious than in the spring or early summer. Many of the flowering perennials are either taking a well deserved rest after shooting up from ground level and producing a wonderful show of flowers or still have their thing to do which won't happen until the end of the month or September.

The effects of pests and maybe a period of drought are also showing with some yellowed and pitted leaves. The lawn has slowed down in the heat and isn't the rich unbroken greensward that it was a couple of months ago. The gardening year is approaching the maturity of September.

    It's been an odd sort of a summer so far in Cambridgeshire. My rule of thumb for rainfall is how full my water butts are and by now now they've usually been empty for a couple of weeks at least. But for the first three weeks of July they regularly overflowed when the rain just kept coming down and I had no reason to take any water out of them. The last week has seen them becoming empty, but I've yet to use the mains tap at all this year for water.

It's not like it's been very sunny either. When it's not been raining, it's looked like it's about to rain at any time, all of which has led to fairly warm and very damp conditions. Just the kind of conditions that fungi love in fact.

    This year seems to have become the year of the fungus. I've noticed it on all kinds of plants that have contracted some vague illness that can't quite be pinpointed. Discoloured leaves that are brown at the edges, maybe tending to black, but still alive rather than dry and crispy. I have been completed overwhelmed in the "any questions" feature in the website by people sending in their questions, so much so that I've had to take the cop-out of never promising to answer them all and have been deleting emails wholesale, the feature is now disabled until I catch up again.

A common question has been regarding a "sooty" deposit on plants, this is almost certainly "sooty mould" that is not growing on the plant as such, but on the sticky honeydew exuded by aphids higher up in the leaves. The sooty mould is a fungus that feeds on the sugary excretions, in itself it will not directly harm the plant, but it will cause discolouration and block light. The honeydew itself will also make it easier for other infections to take a foothold.

There have also been a whole host of emails about dying hedges and conifers. Brown patches that have been growing slowly for some time, that have suddenly become much larger and killed more of the hedge or tree. There are a number of possible causes of this - all fungal. What is probably happening is that the hedge or tree has been poorly for a while, but this warm damp summer came along and it became party time for the fungus. What can be done about it? Not a lot really once it's started to happen. It's more a case of removing dead or dying growth that may spread within the plants and then in the future carrying out basic hygiene. Dead leaves for instance from diseased plants should leave the garden in the wheelie-bin,  down the tip or up in smoke, they shouldn't go on the compost heap or the infection will continue.

Spraying your plants with a general fungicide will help to reduce the effect or extent of the infection, but not completely eliminate it. Remember a garden is simply a collection of novel exotic food for all the local pests and diseases to have a go at!

    Speaking of pests, whitefly in particular have been very prominent this year, especially so it seems on beeches, both trees and hedges. Why this should be is down to a series of factors building up over the last couple of years of weather and of predator population sizes that means that plenty of whitefly survived the winter and the predators weren't ready come the spring.

Every year there's some plant / pest / disease that does particularly well due the nature of simultaneous overlapping cycles of nature that happen to come up in favour of one and the detriment of another. My Fuchsias are superb this year, better than they've ever been, but the sweet peas just haven't really made it properly wherever they've been planted.

    On a more benign note, we're experiencing a huge population growth of hover flies in East Anglia, especially on the coast, where home-grown flies are being added to by continental cousins flying / blown over from mainland Europe. Despite looking like bees or wasps, hoverflies are completely harmless if irritating in their rather rude manners of landing on you. Whereas normal flies are a bit circumspect and buzz around for a bit - at least they seem to realise they're unwanted and act it - hoverflies treat you like any other shrub or tree and just land when they want to.

The adults feed on pollen but the larvae, bless their little cotton socks feed on a variety of food in particular aphids. Hoverflies are economically very important in the role that they play in reducing this pest on crops and in gardens too. The adults have had a surprisingly useful purpose too on my lilies. Lily flowers have great big wobbly hanging stamens that are covered in a bright orange pollen that I always manage to get on some clothing that is light in colour so consigning it to an early wash. At the moment, as soon as the tip of the lily flower opens, there's hoverflies trying to get in and very soon after it is open the stamens are completely naked of pollen - something I've never seen before. At least it'll keep my clothes clean :o)

    Speaking of the lily of the field - my plant of the moment at this time of the year is Lilium regale. Wonderfully huge scented white flowers, half a dozen or more on a single stem that reaches to 3 or 4ft tall. Individual flowers can get up to 12 inches across, they're later this year than last, a result of the low level fungal illness they're limping along with and also the relatively low light levels too I guess, lots of cloud and little actual sunshine.

The secret with these bulbs is to look after them and keep them going from year to year. The first year, they'll be good, but it's from the second onwards where they really excel. As soon as the flowers are over, snap off the remains leaving ALL the leaves intact so that they don't put their energy into seed. Look after them watering and feeding as you would normally for a valued plant. This way the leaves will start to channel energy into the bulb for next year.

They're best placed where there is some protection from the wind and weather, containers on a sheltered patio are good. I've had stems snap off as the fully opened flowers are weighted down by rain and then broken by the wind. If this happens to yours however all is far from lost as the single stem of flowers can make a display all on its own in a simple vase and will fill a room with scent for days on end.

    Do you have a water butt? This is one of my pet subjects as I'm constantly reminded how useful they are and plants prefer rainwater too. I've one large one that gets filled from the garage roof at the top of the garden, and another couple of plastic barrels at the bottom of the garden that fill from small shed roofs. I rarely have to use any mains water on my assorted containers, containerized plants, and establishing shrubs and perennials. The butts/barrels fill up when it rains and the plants are naturally watered, and then during the next dry spell, the butt/barrel empties. It usually works out that it rains again just in time as my rainwater supply runs out.

- Don't use the rainwater for seedlings or cuttings. There is invariably some contamination in the butt even though lids keep most of it out and you may well introduce spores of fungi or bacteria that while older plants can easily shrug them off, younger ones may get ill.

The ones at the bottom of the garden are especially useful as I don't have to carry water any more than necessary - and I can never be bothered with a hose, too much trouble if put away, or too in your face if conveniently attached to the side of the house.

If you do install one, I'd recommend using run-off from an out building or shed as I do. Down-pipe diverters from the house never seem to work well for long (maybe I've seen the wrong type). Avoid the classic mistake of the tilting water butt by making sure there is an overflow and that it doesn't just fall next to the butt. My overflows are led down to ground level by a pipe and then a short 3-4 foot piece of drainpipe (black, and hidden in the undergrowth) takes the water away from under the foundations of the butt. At a previous house I was even more organized and the overflow led into the sunken plastic liner of a bog-garden, so making sure it received more than its fair share of water - it all helps!

Jobs / Tips

    August is the main time that people go on holiday of course and so with the garden more needy of regular attention than at any other time of year - it gets abandoned, what to do?

The obvious solution is to get a friend, relative or neighbor to come round and keep all of your containers and recently planted trees and shrubs watered so they don't succumb to the summer heat. The reality of this approach is not always as you would like, but you can take a few steps to help your plants survive and make them easier for your "volunteer" to look after

Give trees and shrubs that have been planted in the soil a really thorough watering before you go, about a bucketful each. Let the water gradually soak in, don't pour it all at once so half of it runs out of range. Then give them a heavy mulch 3-4" (7-10cm) of garden compost or manure, almost anything will do in fact as long as it keeps the moisture in.

    Keep dead-heading all flowering plants. If you leave them, they start to put all of their energy into seed production and the flowers come to a halt. What starts off early in the season as a pleasant novelty becomes a chore at this time of year, but it's the only way to keep the flowers coming.

    Prop heavily laden branches of fruit trees, particularly plums,  to support the weight and prevent damage. Make a note, mental or written as to which tree/s and branch/es need to be pruned to help the problem. Apple trees in particular can grow their branches further and further from the trunk with apples only produced at the ends.

    Feed bedding plants in the ground or in containers, and the same for crops such as tomatoes in grow-bags, use a soluble fertiliser as these get to the plant quickest. Once a week at least now especially in containers as most composts contain only a little nutrient and this will now be virtually used up. I noticed my Surfinia Petunias getting a few pale and yellowish blotched leaves recently meaning I need to increase the dose.

    Set the mower a little higher than normal in hot dry weather. Though this year has been blessed with lots of rain so far and lawns in general are still looking very green, we can't assume this will continue. Best to mow little and often.

    An effective way to reduce a whitefly infestation is by vacuuming. Portable car vacuums are reckoned to be ideal way of doing this, the domestic vacuum may just eat all of your tomato plants at the same time if you're not careful.

    If any perennials are particularly badly affected by pests, cutting them back to the ground can be an effective way of revitalizing them. I cut my Delphiniums back last week for instance as they were looking rather tatty and the older leaves were succumbing to fungal infections. I'll be buying some named varieties soon when I been and come back from my holidays to replace the fairly ordinary versions that I have in my garden at the moment.

    Trim hedges, particularly conifers. 

    Start to plan spring flowering bulbs for next year. Spring flowering bulbs and shrubs

Still to do from last months list

    Sow seeds of winter flowering pansies and violas. These are one of the easiest plants to grow from seed and if started off now will be good strong plants by the autumn and so able to flower throughout the winter period finishing off with a final flourish in the spring. Pansies are strictly speaking perennials and can be kept going, but they are never again as good as they were in the first year, so are best discarded and replaced. One of the main reasons I grow from seed rather than buying them as plants (as well as the satisfaction of growing from seed) is that you can get a bed or group of all your favourite shades and colours.

    A good time to take cuttings of shrubs. Cut a piece of new stem about 6 inches long and remove all flower buds and all but the end 3 or 4 leaves. Place several of these around the rim of a small plant pot filled with a mixture of sand and compost. Water and place in a shaded place, don't allow to dry out. Check the bottom of the pot after a month or so and pot up individual cuttings when you see roots sticking through the drainage holes. It's worth trying with almost anything, maybe I shouldn't say that but even when I read up how to propagate a plant I usually try this method as well anyway as it's so simple and will work with lots of plants for most people.

    Keep watering containers regularly. If you don't need to water them daily, they should be checked daily as a hot day, particularly if there's a drying wind can suck all of the water out of a container. When planting up any containers, then always go for the largest you can afford so they don't dry out so quickly. Water, feed and dead-head regularly for the best show.

    Water autumn and spring planted trees and shrubs during hot dry spells. 

    Look for "suckers" on roses or grafted trees. These are shoots of the wild-type rootstock that the ornamental foliage is grafted onto and will emerge below the graft union which should be fairly obvious as a knobbly irregular region at the bottom of the stem or trunk. If left, then the rootstock being more vigorous (hence its use as rootstock) will take over the ornamental part of the plant.