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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.
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| Place all of your containers in a shaded area of
the garden, the more shady the better, it will slow growth down and
cut water loss dramatically.
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| Remove all flowers from container plants. Even
large buds too, depending on how long you're away for. No-one will
see them and it will encourage the plants to provide new flowers
ready for your return, also prevents them from running to seed if
they're not dead-headed.
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| If you have crops that will be ready while you're
away, tell your garden-minder they can have any that ripen, gives an
extra reason to look after the plants properly and keeps them
cropping well for your return.
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| Don't ask that the garden as a whole is watered,
pick out a few particularly sensitive plants for special treatment,
better a few get what they need while the rest can get by than they
suffer. Don't leave instructions by name, tie a small piece of
ribbon around the chosen ones.
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| Cut the lawn before you leave. It won't hurt if it
doesn't get cut for a couple of weeks or so as grass doesn't like
high temperatures much and growth slows down now anyhow. If it has
grown noticeably (more than usual when your cut it) by your return,
give it a first cut with the blades set higher than normal,
particularly if it's been very hot and dry and then cut it as normal
a few days later. |
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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.
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