AUGUST is a time to enjoy the garden and the fruits of the labour that has gone on during the rest of the year. I love to go outside in the early morning when the air is still fairly cool and potter about deadheading spent blooms, staking the odd fallen hero and weeding.

Spaces can be filled with new plants, there are a lot about at summer fetes and shows as well as market stalls and nurseries, although it is also a good time for careful planning.

August is sometimes considered a tricky month for flowering plants, a lull when early summer specimens have finished and late summer ones yet to come, but in fact the month brings riotous colour from heleniums and achilleas, echinacea and rudbeckia.

A garden visit or walk around the neighbourhood will soon give some ideas should colour be lacking from the garden.

The beds in our garden are deep in places with difficult access to the back, so they are gradually being divided by simple paths of flag stones laid on top of flattened earth.

Digging up established plants and putting down paving seems harsh, but more space is created since much more of the garden is exposed. The plants can be replanted, the beds get more light and all those inaccessible areas are suddenly available for new plans and planting.

For the moment, these areas have simply been tidied with dead stems and branches removed from the trees and shrubs, and tall specimens reduced in height to let more morning sun into the garden.

Ideas are slowly beginning to form, a hedge against the fence for the birds and spring bulbs and flowers for early colour are a couple we have come up with, but for the moment it is enough to spend a few weeks pottering and planning.


weekend catch-up

IT IS a good time to divide bearded iris which will have finished flowering for this season and be producing their large fans of foliage.

Bearded iris have long fat rhizomes under which are the roots and it is a fairly easy job to lift them by carefully loosening the roots from the soil and carrying the plants to a clear space.

Sections of the rhizome generally break away, otherwise they can be cut with a sharp knife. Each section should have roots and foliage. The new plants can then be replanted in groups and watered in. Bearded iris likes a hot, sunny spot and poor soil.

The rhizomes sit on the surface of the soil baking in the sun and protecting the roots that anchor the plant and search out moisture.


garden news

THE Society of Garden Designers’ (SGD) celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and as part of these celebrations will be marking the event at an open garden at Stillingfleet Lodge Gardens in Stillingfleet, one of only 30 gardens in the country to be chosen.

With the anniversary theme of “30 years and 3 minutes” the society aims to expand on the theory that just three minutes exposure to green space helps to reduce stress, something most gardeners will agree with.

The event will take place on Sunday, September 25 from noon to 4pm, when the garden at Stillingfleet Lodge will be a mass of colour from late-summer and autumn-flowering perennials and grasses.

One of the features is the rill garden designed by York based member of SGD Lizzie Tulip, who will available to talk about her work.

Owner of the garden Vanessa Cook says: “It is a great honour to be selected as one of the 30 gardens in the country to showcase all that is best in garden design.

“We have been selected as one of only two gardens in Yorkshire and I am delighted that Lizzie’s design has merited this national recognition.”


Gardening tv and radio

Tomorrow
8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

2pm, BBC Radio 4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Chairman Peter Gibbs and his team help gardeners in Walsham-le-Willows in Suffolk. They also visit Bob Flowerdew’s laboratory garden, while Matthew Wilson creates an upsidedown plot at Hampton Court Palace. (Repeated from Friday).

Friday
3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Matthew Biggs, Matthew Wilson and Christine Walkden are in Blackpool. (Repeated on Sunday).

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Monty Don prunes deciduous hedges and pots up dahlias and cannas for late summer colour. Meanwhile Carol Klein visits a hidden gem in Wakefield.

Saturday, August 13.
7am, BBC Radio York, Julia Booth. Julia Booth and Nigel Harrison hold their weekly plant surgery.


open gardens

Tomorrow

In aid of The National Gardens Scheme.

Boundary Cottage, Seaton Ross, York, YO42 4NF, five miles south west of Pocklington. Plantsman’s no-dig garden with ponds and lined streams in bog gardens, extensive mixed plantings in large island beds, maturing specimen trees, seasonal displays and unusual fruit and vegetables. There is also a village plot to see in Seaton Ross. Open 11am to 4pm, admission £3.50.

Mansion Cottage, 8 Gillus Lane, Bempton, YO15 1HW, two miles north east of Bridlington. Surprisingly large, peaceful hidden garden with vibrant perennials, grasses, fruit and vegetables, new apothecary garden and lovely views. Homemade lunches, teas and produce for sale. Open10am to 4pm, admission £3. Also open today 10am-4pm.