Colour your life in August

High summer is here – the buzz of insect life and exquisite butterflies is all around us.  Now that your garden is blooming, you can also see clearly where you would like to plant something extra. An elegant tree, a compact shrub, a combination of perennials? Visit your garden centre for inspiration and advice.

Make your garden more beautiful

The handy thing is that most garden plants are grown in pots nowadays, which means that you can plant them all year round. Look out for a lovely flowering buddleia, plant it now and make your garden even more beautiful. Plus you’ll get many more butterflies in your garden.

Hoarding for the future

• Do you enjoy growing plants from seed yourself? Then now is the right time to collect seeds.
• How about making it a treasure hunt and getting some help from the kids?
• Many plants are bearing ripe seeds now, such as the campanula, mullein, primula and maiden pink.
• Dry the seeds and then store them - preferably in acid-free paper bags - in a dry cool spot.
• Then you can have the fun of going out into the garden together next spring to plant them.

One more flowering

The flowers on some plants have already finished flowering. If you ‘dead head’ them (remove the dead flowers regularly), it helps the plant thrive and flower more.  Sometimes you will even get a second or follow-on flowering, which means that you can enjoy scent and colour in your garden even longer.