Gardening July 2007

The Wild Garden in August

Although swifts will be leaving for Africa this month, house martins should stay a while longer. The sight of swallows lined up on telephone wires marks the turn of the year and signals the approach of autumn. By mid-August swifts have already left for Africa, although swallows and house martins linger a little bit longer, gathering in flocks before embarking on their long migration.

It’s harder to spot some of our shy all-year-round residents, hidden in hedges and thickets. If you keep a birdbath well topped up with water, you’ll tempt them out for early morning bathing as well as provide much-needed drinking water in dry weather. It’s a good idea to raise your birdbath off the ground, and place it in the open, giving birds a clear view of danger.

The colours in the garden tend toward gold and bronze as the brighter early and mid-summer flowers fade. It’s the time of year to enjoy ornamental grasses for their seedheads, and plants that thrive in dry, hot conditions, such as lavender and perovskia. Herbaceous perennials in flower at this time of year include: campanula, echinops, geranium psilostemon, coreopsis, phlox, erigeron, penstemon, aster and helenium.

Deadheading buddleia will keep it flowering well into the autumn

Shrubs and trees come into their own when herbaceous plants fade and can maintain interest in your garden through summer into winter. Good summer-flowering shrubs include lavatera, hebe, viburnum plicatum, shrubby potentilla, philadelphus and escallonia. Leycesteria formosa is a striking shrub with green bamboo-like stems and purple and white flowers, followed by purple berries.

Deadheading buddleia will keep it flowering well into the autumn. Although later flowers will be smaller than earlier ones they are particularly valuable as a food supply for bees and butterflies. The elder, sambucus nigra, guincho purple is good for shady areas and has attractive purple leaves, as well as flowers in early summer.

Thinking ahead to Autumn, you could start letting flowers, and perhaps a few vegetables if you grow them, run to seed to provide food for birds and other wildlife. Seedheads tend to look more attractive than bare earth in the winter. Leave some windfall apples, pears and plums for birds to feed on. Birds are also likely to be tempted by your soft fruits such as raspberry and gooseberry, so if you don’t want to share, you’ll have to cover them with netting.

Jobs for the month: –

Dead head roses and other perennial plants to encourage them to keep flowering

Allow lawns to grow slightly longer to tolerate hot weather
Trim evergreen hedges
Water pots and hanging baskets
Feed plants in pots regularly
Keep ponds topped up with rainwater