Garden Diary, things to do in the garden in late summer (August)

AUGUST

FRUIT

·        

Pick fruit as soon as it is ready.

·        

Continue to prune restricted forms of apples and
pears.

·        

Begin pruning over-vigorous trees

·        

Support heavily laden branches.

·        

Protect fruit against birds.

·        

Immediately after watt trained peaches and
nectarines have cropped, prune out the shoots which have borne fruit and
tie in replacement shoots.

·        

Prune plums and damsons after fruiting.

·        

Prepare new strawberry beds, and plant out rooted
runners.

·        

Continue to prune and tie in rasps.

·        

Continue to train in blackberries.

·        

Apples – spray against bitter pit.

·        

Late August, spray stone fruits after cropping
against bacterial canker if necessary.

·        

Gooseberries and currants, spray for leaf spot
and mildew if necessary.

·        

Strawberries spray for mildew if troublesome.

LAWNS

·        

Same treatment as for July.

·        

Grass overgrown after holidays, lift height of
cut and gradually bring it back down after several mowings.

·        

Last month to feed with a nitrogen rich
fertilizer, and for weed killing.

·        

Seed sowing at the end of the month can begin.

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GARDENING BY MONTH

Gardening in January
Gardening in February
Gardening in March
Gardening in April
Gardening in May
Gardening in June
Gardening in July
Gardening in August
Gardening in September
Gardening in October
Gardening in November

Gardening in December

The above helpful advice
has been reproduced by kind permission of Will Hart, whose experience
includes working for Blackburn Rovers FC (as a groundsman at their
Training Ground, Academy and Ewood Park), for the Sultan of Oman (at
his French residence in Fontainebleau, south of Paris) at the 1999 Martell
Grand National at Aintree and for a variety of different sized local
gardens and estates.  Impressive credentials I am sure you will
agree!

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