August

Key task

Stake your dahlias to stop them keeling over in the border and look out for earwigs (see p88). Deadheading keeps the flowers coming.

This month’s round up…

As you go about your gardening tasks this month, deadheading and pruning back overgrown plants, such as wisteria, look out for butterflies including red admiral and painted lady, as well as dragonflies and damsonflies.

Prune

■ Early summer-flowering shrubs

■ Hedges

■ Honeysuckle (climbing)

■ Lavender – after flowering

■ Rambling roses

■ Wisteria

Plant

■ Autumn-flowering bulbs

■ Heathers

■ Potted chrysanthemums

■ Salad seedlings

■ Strawberry runners

■ Winter brassicas, such as kale

Sow

■ Corn salad

■ Hardy annuals

■ Onions

■ Oriental vegetables

■ Radishes

■ Rocket

■ Spring cabbages

Harvest

■ Beetroot

■ Chillies

■ Courgettes

■ French and runner beans

■ Herbs

■ Raspberries

■ Summer squashes

■ Sweetcorn

■ Tomatoes

This months Star plants

1 Echinacea purpurea ‘PowWow Wild Berry’

Fill your border with this vibrant echinacea, which has broad, berry-pink petals. It’s best in full sun, in fertile, free-draining soil and popular with bees, butterflies and moths.

Flowers July-September

Height x Spread 50cm x 40cm

2 Cosmos ‘Kiiro’

Cosmos is a star plant