Five ways to boost your garden in August

Discover five easy ways to boost your garden in August, below.

Plant up more containers

Plant a large pot with plants for late-summer colour. This will create a useful splash of colour on the patio, or stood in a gap in the border. Grown in a container, you will be able to water and care for them for the remainder of the summer and enjoy their colourful display. The plants can them be taken out of the pot in the dormant season and replanted in the garden where they will provide much needed colour this time next year.

Deadhead plants

Deadhead roses, dahlias and any summer perennials that still have more buds to follow. Do the same with annual bedding plants regularly so they can’t start setting seed. This keeps them flowering more vigorously and they’ll continue doing so into the autumn.

Care for containers

Pay particular attention to containers as by now they’ll be packed solid with roots so plants will need even more feeding, watering and deadheading than usual to keep them looking good. Be ruthless with any that are clearly past it, especially if they’ve dried out badly at any time. Tip them out and replace with a fresh batch of fuchsias, pelargoniums or autumn pansies in new compost – add water-retaining gel crystals to assist with moisture holding.

Cut back spent plants

Cut back plants such as astrantia, pulmonaria, floppy hardy geraniums and variegated brunnera to remove mildewed or straggly growth, and encourage fresh new foliage and perhaps even a late flush of flowers. Treat them to a good liquid feed and water afterwards.

Fill seasonal gaps

Fill seasonal gaps in displays where plants such as early summer bulbs or oriental poppies have died down. Use strategically placed pots of plants such as lilies, patio dahlias, upright fuchsias (even a standard fuchsia) or tall late perennials.