August Gardening Tips

•August is a great time to increase your plant stocks for yourself or to give to friends by taking cuttings of tender perennial plants, such as verbenas or pelargonium’s. Using a sharp knife cute a neat cutting and then dip each one into a hormone rooting compound before placing them them into small pots of mulktipurpose  compost mixed with perlite. Water them in well and place the pots in a cold frame/greenhouse if you have one or on warm windowsill but keep them out of direct sunlight. Hopefully they should root within eight weeks and can then be potted up and grown on over winter in the greenhouse or a windowsill.

Continue to dead head and waterof all of your hanging baskets and containers. Adding feed once a week will extend the flowering season and produce better plants, if we get a mild autumn we may get baskets looking good well into November.

• Cut back your lavender bushes once the flowers have gone over, dont cut back too hard or you may damage the shrub, (dont cut into the woody stems). Its worth noting that goldcrests love the seeds and if you
leave the seeds on the bushes then you may get lots of autumn visitors.

Keep on top of the weeds with regular hoeing of annual weeds consider using a glyphosate based weedkiller for stubborn weeds to kill the roots as well as the leaves.

• Although this year has been wet, make sure you dont let potted plants dry out in any warm spells we have.

• Stop feeding roses in August as excessive feeding encourages soft growth that won't have a chance to ripen before the winter, this can get damaged and allow pests and dieseases to attack your plants.

• Vine weevils have become a regular garden pest over recent years, the bugs munch on leaves of your plants, you will notice notches being bitten at the edge, rather than in the middle more common with slug damage. However the unsightly blotches are not the main problem, but rather the grubs which will feast on the roots of your plants. Using a chemical or biological control now will help reduce the risk.