The plan is to potter and relax, maybe deadhead those Californian poppies – but GINA PARKINSON knows she won’t be able to resist doing more than that.

IT WAS a shock last Sunday to go out into a mistily dewed garden and sniff a fleeting scent of autumn in the air. Another summer is passing and there seems to have been hardly time to get everything done I wanted to.

Of course, this is the feeling many of us have each summer and nothing to do with the recent weather, and there is still plenty of the summer left to enjoy.

My intention in August is to enjoy being outside, taking advantage of any sunny warm days to potter and maybe even relax in a deckchair, but this more often than not doesn’t happen.

My family would say the words ‘gardening’ and ‘relax’ don’t exist as partners in my vocabulary, and I have to admit to finding it difficult not to be doing something when outside. So if you’re like that too, here are a few key jobs to be getting on with this month.

Border plants grow quickly at this time of year and so unfortunately do weeds, so be on guard and pull any out as soon as they are spotted.

Keep lawn edges neat to stop the grass encroaching into the flower bed and pull out chickweed and other annuals before they bloom and set seed. We have a problem with bindweed in our garden and it is very difficult to keep on top of, especially when the beds are blowsy with ornamentals.

The usual advice for such pernicious weeds is to dig them out with a complete root, but for the moment it will be a case of trying to find the source of the growth and just pulling out as much as possible.

Any digging about in a crowded bed will probably cause too much damage to the other plants, so if the bindweed stems are tightly bound around their stems, the best way is to carefully pull the main stem up from the soil then leave the plant to die back. It looks unsightly for a while, but they will have loosened their grip on their support plant in a couple of days and be much easier to remove.

Annuals are flowering away especially in pots and containers. I grew Californian poppies for the first time this year and they have filled a pot on the sunny patio with colour for weeks.

They are mix of colours from white to red, but the main hue has been rich egg-yolk yellow, the silky petals gleaming in the sun and fluttering in the slightest of breezes. This isn’t a neat plant, the stems grow this way and that, tumbling over the edge of the pot on to the ground, but it will bloom from June until September.

In common with all container-grown annuals, flowering can be prolonged with deadheading, so it is worth spending a bit of time nipping out any spent blooms and giving the pot a weekly soak with liquid plant food.

 

Weekend catch-up

Philadelphus or mock orange has finished flowering and is busy sending out the new growth that will provide next year’s flowers. This vigorous shrub will grow in almost any site and soil, so long as it has sun for at least part of the day. The flowers are deliciously scented and provide blossom in June and July, which can sometime be a disappointing time for garden shrubs after a spectacular show from spring flowering species.

However, this adaptability has its drawbacks and mock orange can quickly outgrow its space and become overcrowded, with thick woody and tangled stems.

Pruning should be done as soon as flowering has finished so now is a good time to get it done. About one third of the oldest stems can be taken out at ground level together with any dead or damaged growth.


In the veg garden

SUMMER fruiting raspberry canes can be cut back once they have been harvested. Just take out the old ones and tie in new ones that have grown this summer. These will fruit next year.

Autumn-fruiting raspberries fruit on canes formed earlier in the same season so the fruited stems aren’t cut back until late winter. This type of raspberry is dense growing and may need thinning during the growing season, with a few of the new stems taken out to stop them becoming too crowded.

The fruit is usually ready to be gathered in early to mid-autumn; it doesn’t attract the attentions of birds and so won’t need netting.

 

Gardening talk

Askham Bryan College Gardening Club has ten tickets left for the Chris Beardshaw talk on Tuesday, September 18.

Tickets are £10 each and are available by sending a cheque made payable to ABC Gardening Club and an SAE to Peter Powel, 27 Ebor Way, Nether Poppleton, York, YO26 6NJ.

Chris Beardshaw is well known as a TV and radio personality as well as a professional garden designer.

His gold medal winning garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year celebrated the 90th anniversary of Furzey Gardens in Hampshire and the achievements of its learning disability team.

He included rhododendrons and azaleas in the woodland design, shrubs that haven’t been popular in Chelsea gardens for many years.

The talk begins at 7.30pm in the Conference Hall at Askham Bryan College. There is plenty of nearby free parking.

 

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.

3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Chris Beardshaw, Bob Flowerdew, Bunny Guinness and chairman Eric Robson advise members of Thetford Garden and Allotment Club in Norfolk.

Friday

3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Matthew Biggs, Pippa Greenwood, Anne Swithinbank and chairman Eric Robson help gardeners from Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire with their horticultural problems.

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Monty Don, below, harvests vegetables and shows how to prune rambling roses and Carol Klein looks for water lilies in the wild.

Saturday, August 18.

7am, BBC Radio York, Julia Booth. Julia presents her weekly plant surgery with horticultural expert Nigel Harrison.