August gardening tips from the Barnsdale Gardens team

August gardening tips from the Barnsdale Gardens team: It’s been a very funny summer weather-wise, I am sure you will all agree! But maybe, we will have an Indian Summer to look forward to. If so, this means the conditions will be sublime for popping on your sun hat and cream, and working in your garden! The team at Barnsdale Gardens offer a whole host of tips below for the garden in August, take a leaf out of their book for a garden to be proud of.

Discourage slugs
In wet weather, slugs and snails become very mobile, so make sure you protect your young and soft-stemmed plants in the productive area and ornamental borders. At Barnsdale, the team use either wood ash in a band around susceptible plants or organic slug pellets.

Keep on top of weeds
Not only do weeds use up the valuable resource of water in the soil they also harbour pests. Therefore, it is important to keep on top of the weeds by hoeing or pulling them out as often as you can.

Cut back scruffy perennials
Some of the early flowering perennials will start to look tatty and distract your eye from the really good looking plants merrily flowering away. The spent flower stems can be removed and any scruffy leaves can be cut back hard. The leaves will re-shoot with fresh look.

Cut back herbs
Herbs can become woody and untidy at this time of year, giving little leaf to use in the kitchen. By giving them a good haircut it encourages them to burst back into growth giving soft, aromatic and tasty leaves.

Plant spring flowering bulbs
There is a wide range of spring bulbs, that when planted at the end of this month/beginning of next will give an excellent flower display next year and beyond.

Harvest raspberries
Keep on top of the harvesting, with maincrop and the autumn raspberries both producing at the moment.

Prune apples and pears
Now is the time to prune back this year’s shoots on established trees. This ensures the production of more fruiting buds and directs all the tree’s efforts into producing a good crop of well-sized fruit. Cut back shoots to three buds – usually leaving about 2.5cm (1”).

AND DON’T FORGET …There is plenty to do in August at Barnsdale!

Productive Area Tours: 10th – 11th August, 12pm & 2pm
Our vegetable grower-in-chief, Susie, will lead tours of Barnsdale’s fruit and veg growing areas.

Barnsdale Gardens; behind the scenes: 18th August, 12pm-4pm.
Join Nick Hamilton on short walks while he talks about  what’s looking good in the gardens and the history behind them.

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