Five ways to boost your garden in August

BBC Gardeners' World Magazine

Published: Friday, 5 August 2022 at 8:00 am

Give your garden a late-summer boost with the help of these five quick and easy solutions.

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By August, many early summer flowering plants will be starting to look past their best.

However, your garden fiesta doesn't have to end there. With a few simple steps you can give your plot the pep up it needs to last right into autumn.

What to plant 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.

Late summer pot

A red-themed, late-summer container

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.

Deadheading roses

Deadheading pink roses

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.

Fuchsia pot

A planter of pink flowers

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.

How to grow hardy geraniums - cutting back geraniums

Cutting back straggly hardy geraniums

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.

Fuchsia container

Pot of pink and purple fuchsias

Low maintenance summer containers

Going away? Whether you're off on holiday or simply want more time to do other things, take a look at some of the beautiful low maintenance summer containers to you could pot up.

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