August is when the garden is full of leaf and flower and to keep it that way you will need to keep plants well fed, deadheaded (again) Don’t cut off flower heads of ornamental grasses as these will provide winter interest.

Ensure that you keep on top of pests and diseases especially vine weevil, watch out for notching on leaves which is a give away. If you have plants in pots ease them out carefully and look for creamy grubs amongst the roots. If you find them, treat the compost with nematodes for biological pest control, which will kill vine weevil larvae. You can also apply them to the soil around attacked plants which you think might be suffering.

If you have just returned from your summer (?) holidays you will need to make sure that you do not give your lawn a severe short back and sides but reduce the height gradually. Again a little bit of feed and weed killing will not go amiss. You can always ignore that last piece of advice, hold your head in your hands and go off and make a relaxing cup of tea and then have a go at it and the rest of the weeds that will have sprung up in the garden. These pearls of wisdom can be repeated over the next few weeks.

One of the main tasks this month will be to keep on top of the watering. The best time for this will be early morning or in the evening so that the water has chance to seep into the ground/compost before the day gets too hot. If not then the water will evaporate before the plant(s) have time to take it up. You can always check by digging down and looking; the soil should be moist to down to about 3-4 inches. Just squeeze some in your hand and if it holds together it is moist enough.

Now is the time to plant out winter flowering pansies but make sure that the soil structure is in good condition and if in doubt a touch of soil improver/organic manure (and keep watered) will ensure that plants establish well.

This is also the time of year to order spring flowering bulbs, especially daffodils. In fact these can be planted if you have planned out your garden and know what you want. Do not forget other bulbous species such as amaryllis, belladonna, bluebells, chionodoxa, colchicum, erythronium, fritillaria, leucojum, scilla sibirice, snowdrops etc.

To encourage wildlife you can make shelters and leave prunings to provide suitable habitats for a range of species. To further attract wildlife certain plants are more attractive by supplying nectar such as Sedum spectabile ( highly attractive to butterflies and bees making an additional attraction in the autumn garden) and others for their, pollen, Lavatera (needs a bit of room and sun to be at its best. Insect-friendly planting is likely to attract more insects than a mass planting of flowers providing only nectar or pollen.

Lets hope August is better than the forecast. If not here’s to September!