Innehållsförteckning för August 2020 från BBC Gardeners' World

Learn... Growing tomatoes at home this summer? Follow Alan’s video for a bumper crop at gardenersworld.com/tomato-guide – and sign up for reminders and topical tasks from our weekly email newsletter. Visit… As gardens reopen, you’ll save money on your visits with our 2 for 1 Gardens Card & Guide – it’s valid until April 2021. Buy yours for £6.99 incl. postage, while stocks last, at magsdirect.co.uk/gwmay20 Save... Our award-winning app lets you read GW on the go. Save 50% at bit.ly/ GW-digital . Find us in the Readly app on Apple or Google and with a monthly subscription to Apple News+ Save even more... Subscribe in print today and get six issues for just £22.50! You’ll get each issue delivered to your door PLUS enjoy exclusive content, benefits and money-saving offers.…

Aster x frikartii ‘Mönch’ Most Michaelmas daisies are saving themselves for September, but this ‘best-of-the-lot’ blue daisy can come into bloom in June and still be going strong in October. Its elegant branching stems carry an abundance of simple flowers. Plant it in an open, sunny spot and deadhead to prolong flowering. Flowers Jul-Sep Height x Spread 70cm x 40cm Selinum wallichianum If you’re only going to grow one umbellifer, grow this one. Big rosettes of ferny foliage form the backdrop to statuesque stems bearing domed heads of tiny green and white flowers. This is a plant with class and deportment. It fits in with everything, but despite its quiet, gentle presence it’s always the first plant you notice. FJul-Sep HxS1.8m x 60cm Phlox…

Explore your garden at different times of day, to get to know the light and shade People often seem daunted by the idea of designing their own garden. It’s interesting that many are comfortable turning their house into a home – choosing colour schemes, layout and furniture – but not turning their outdoor space into the haven of their dreams. But it needn’t be that way – it’s simple and fun to design your garden so it reflects your personality and lifestyle. Start by drawing up two lists. The first should include all the practical elements you need in your garden – shed, compost bin, washing line, bin store, etc – and the second should be about you, your family and what you love. Think about places, music, colours, shapes…

Ball Fresh Preserving Starter Kit £23 with 4 x 240ml glass jars With preserving tools, a guide, a recipe booklet and a jar lifter, this kit has everything you need to get started making your own jams, pickles and chutneys. A great kit for a beginner on a budget. qvc.com Kitchen Craft Home Made StainlessSteel Mini Maslin Pan £27.95 5L 26cm x 17.5cm A classic-style maslin pan for making jams, marmalades and chutneys. Has graduated metric and imperial markings on the inside of the pan. Can also be used for making soups and stews. hartsofstur.com Jam Thermometer £7 Get your preserves perfect every time, with a thermometer that ensures you get to the critical setting point. Hang inside the pan to read the temperature while cooking. Measures in both centigrade…

■ Have you got the right lawn? Cylinder mowers need an even surface for the scissor action of the blades to work well, so your lawn must be fairly bump free and 250m² or below. Simpler shapes are easier, unless you opt for a compact model with a smaller cutting width that can be manoeuvred more easily around trees and island beds and under shrubs. ■ Do you like mowing the lawn? Hand push mowers clearly take more effort than powered mowers, but are easier to push if the grass isn’t too long. Cylinder mowers work best on fairly short grass and will struggle or not cut long grass at all. So you need to cut regularly or choose a mower with a high height of cut to let you…

“Numbers increase dramatically in August, as the second generation appears, before they migrate back to their winter homes” You may spot… Painted lady butterfly, ( Vanessa cardui ) Will this be another painted-lady year? Each summer, these orange-speckled butterflies with black and white wing tips fly from North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia to Europe to breed. Some years, due to fine weather and an abundance of food, we have a huge influx. The last painted-lady year was 2019, previously it was 2009 – could 2020 break the 10-year cycle? They reach the British Isles from March to June, and then feed and breed. Numbers increase greatly in August, as the second generation appears, before they migrate back to their winter homes. Painted ladies are not…

Prioritise watering Keep an eye on your flowers, and take note of plants that dry out and wilt when the sun is shining. Dry plants often recover in the evening, but don’t be fooled into thinking they no longer need watering – those in pots need a soak most days, as do newly planted plants. In the borders, watering needs tend to depend on the weather and the soil type, but give them a long soak in the evening every few days to encourage deep, drought-resistant roots – and make sure to always soak the soil around the plant rather than wetting the foliage. VISIT gardenersworld. com/basics for more advice on plant maintenance Feed acid-loving plants Apply a handful of ericaceous granular fertiliser around the base of your rhododendrons…

Harvest greenhouse crops Pick aubergines, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. If you are growing melons, they may well be ready too – you’ll know by the sweet smell of the fruit. Cup the tomatoes in your hand and pull away from the truss. Use secateurs to cut the other crops listed – they’ll keep longer if you leave a long stalk. Trim herbs such as basil back to a growing point, where it will rapidly grow new shoots. Collect the outer leaves of cut-and-come-again salad crops to keep the centres producing more leaves. Keep on top of ventilation Open the windows on sunny days to ventilate the greenhouse. Temperatures drop at night, so if the greenhouse is not ventilated properly, moisture droplets will gather, encouraging fungal disease to thrive, particularly on…

Annual yew pruning Our established yew topiary pyramids, with their moderate growth rate, require one annual trim, usually carried out in mid to late August. The pruning cuts heal in time to minimise damage from possible frosts in early autumn. We use powered hedge trimmers, taking new growth off in a light first pass. The outline is revealed to carefully trim further, to maintain crisp, flat edges. Thicker, mature twigs can distort a sharp outline, so cut out these protrusions with secateurs. Using them upside-down creates a sharper cut, which will heal better.…

When I had reached my teenage years, back in 1963, Zoom was a brand of ice lolly modelled on one of the rockets we knew from a children’s television programme called Fireball XL5. It was a precursor to the even more popular Thunderbirds, which followed in 1965. This year, Zoom has come to mean something quite different, and while the original might have caused your mum to raise her eyes heavenward when trying to get its multicoloured stains out of your favourite white T-shirt, her eyes are now raised to heaven in thanks for a means of staying in visual contact with her grandchildren. It’s irritating, at times, to try and get a word in edgeways and make that green border appear around your own picture, but Zoom has at…

Tom Hart Dyke The World Garden at Lullingstone Castle, Kent Favourite variety? ‘Avoca Amanda’ has large pink cactus flowers, sturdy stems and doesn’t need to be staked or stored indoors over winter. A real ornamental aristocrat. Top growing tip? When planting out dahlia tubers, bury them deep, up to 12cm below the surface, even covering some of the new shoots. This produces a sturdier plant and reduces the need for staking. Where to see them? In our Mexican-themed border, planted among penstemons, heleniums and salvias. They produce a red hot display from June right through to the first frosts in October/November. Roger Saul Kilver Court Gardens, Somerset Favourite variety? ‘Arabian Knight’ for its large fully double burgundy-red flowers and dark leaves, which create a rich depth of colour. My…

1 SCOTLAND’S OPEN GATES Dozens of Scotland’s finest gardens are opening their gates for the first virtual Scottish Summer Garden Festival. More than 40 free online events run until 15 August. bit.ly/sottish-garden-festival 2 WILD ABOUT YOUR GARDEN Gardeners’ World presenter Frances Tophill has poured her passion for nature into a new book, Rewild Your Garden. Use it to make your own wildlife haven. Out 20 August, £15 (Quercus). 3 HEALTHY EATING A new system of raised planters, with built-in irrigation and guides to crop planning and composts, has been developed by a soil scientist. Ergrownomics kits start at £150 and aim to help you get more nutritious harvests from small spaces. ergrownomics.co.uk 4 ZEN GARDENING FOR KIDS A new game for pre-school kids uses gardening to teach ways to handle…

Clematis ‘Nubia’ Patio clematis have been bred to grow in containers. This one makes a resounding splash of colour to wake up the August garden. FJul-Sep HxS1.2m x 1m Penstemons In my garden, penstemons work best in containers, as by August my borders are a tall mêlée of perennials and grasses. In pots though, penstemons can shine, flowering constantly for months. ‘Sour Grapes’ is a favourite. FJul-Oct HxS60cm x 45cm Geranium ‘Rozanne’ This is one of the best ever perennials, best ever geraniums and best ever container plants! A sterile hybrid, setting no seed, it has no reason to stop flowering. FJun-Sep H x S60cm x 80cm Dahlia ‘Magenta Star’ Create drama in a mixed container with a dark-leaved free-flowering dahlia as the centrepiece.…

Make the most of the long summer holiday with these easy gardening projects. Children of all ages will love to get involved in turning their unwanted items into quirky containers filled with aromatic herbs and edible flowers. It’s also a great way for kids to explore using their senses of smell and taste, as well as sight. Then they can pick their own homegrown herbs to add to meals and collect edible petals to freeze into colourful ice cubes. Please note that an adult should be on hand to cut drainage holes in the repurposed containers, and to supervise picking and using the herbs and flowers. You will need Old items such as broken buckets, food containers, toy cars, trains and trucks, shoes and wellies Peat-free compost Horticultural grit Herbs…

Hedgehogs have suffered huge declines in recent years, thanks to a combination of habitat loss and a lack of food. Gardens can be a fantastic refuge for them but only if they are accessible – fences, walls and other hard landscaping prevent hedgehogs from being able to get in and out of gardens. By simply digging holes beneath your fences you can ensure hedgehogs can travel in and out easily. Hedgehogs can travel for up to two miles a night in search of food and a mate, so by creating a network of connected gardens, we can reduce the need for them to be on the road, and keep them safe to live, feed and breed in our gardens. Not everyone can dig beneath their fence. You may have gravel…

Crop and prepare onions for storage Line a large tray with newspaper, so you can dry your onions for storage. These are ready to harvest when the foliage fades and drops to the ground. Lift the onions, brush off all the soil and check for them damage. Use the damaged ones straightaway and line the rest in the trays with the bulbs exposed. If there’s plenty of sunshine, put them outside to dry. Once dry, remove the old foliage and store the onions in net sacks or hang them up. Cut back summer raspberries Prune out the old raspberry canes that were harvested mid season. By now there will be a mix of stems to sort out. Cut the old ones to ground level. Of the new canes that grew…

This month 110 New gardener problem solver 114 Gardeners’ Question Time The BBC Radio 4 experts answer this month’s pick of readers’ queries, including: ■ Tomatoes with rotten ends ■ How to make more roses Dry weather It’s raining as I write, but recently I’ve had to fight dry weather in my garden. Drought-tolerant plants such as hylotelephium, pines, eryngium and nigella are obvious weapons. Each is adapted to survive dry conditions: nigella does it in seed form. After rain the seeds germinate, grow into new plants and repeat the cycle. These plants prefer a sunny site, but for a shady garden turn to p111 for recommendations. You can also drought proof your garden. Dry soils may contain sand, chalk or clay, and all are improved with organic matter, such…

Plants Hydrangea flowers change 1 colour according to the pH of the soil. Blue rather than pink flowers means the soil pH level is slightly more acidic or alkaline? 2 A strawberry is the only fruit to bear its seeds on the outside. How many seeds does the average strawberry have? A 50 B 200 C 400  Name these flowers 3 4 The word ‘iris’ comes from the Greek for what? 5 Which plant are you commonly instructed to prune in months beginning with J? 6 Name the common garden plants that could be: an item of animal clothing a stylish animal to wed a precious metal not tight problems to bite on your mouth crack a legendary creature 7 The spice saffron comes from which flower ? Wildlife How…

“August: the summer’s last stand”Sara Baume By rights we shouldn’t be here this month. We should all be lolling around on some beach or exploring gardens in other countries. But chances are we’re still here, and most of us will be seeing even more of our gardens. Maybe this too will become the new normal. Let’s be positive – there are advantages. No more sunburn, no waiting in tedious queues at airport security, and absolutely no chance of getting sand in either your pants or your sandwiches. It has been a long summer of extra gardening and I, for one, could probably get used to it. STAR OF THE MONTH Dahlia Dalina Maxi Castillo This dahlia has an extra name, which makes it stand out a little from the crowd.…

With the gradual easing of lockdown restrictions, gardens in our 2 for 1 Entry scheme are beginning to re-open. To ensure the safety of visitors and staff, many have special measures in place, including pre-booking and restricted visitor numbers. Check before you travel Opening details for most of the gardens listed in our 2 for 1 Entry Guide have changed since publication (and are likely to change again before April 2021). So before visiting, always contact the garden directly to find out if and when they are open, and whether additional restrictions apply*. 2 for 1 online directory We are unable to keep all the 2 for 1 garden pages of our online directory up to date, however we will publish the most recent status that we receive from the…

Water companies urge gardeners to “value water” “Small bursts of rain are not enough” Water companies are warning gardeners to hold back on using sprinklers as UK water usage leapt by up to 40 per cent above normal levels in spring to early summer. The exceptionally hot and dry weather coincided with lockdown, when at least half the nation was actively gardening and watering more. The Met Office has been forecasting a warmer-than-average summer for 2020. Professor Liz Bentley of the Royal Meteorological Society says long-term trends show high pressure prevailing – bringing hot, dry weather. “There is a consistent weather pattern of too much rain or too little rain,” she tells us. “It’s about trying to capture rainfall when it comes, so you can use it when there is…

“At Glebe Cottage we want the summer cavalcade to strut its colourful stuff through our borders, boldly and brightly, for as long as possible” August can be a disappointing time in gardens – borders can be a little frazzled and faded. All too easily, it becomes an underwhelming lull between the high drama and flowering bounty of July, and the onset of early autumn’s mellowing. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here at Glebe Cottage we want the summer cavalcade to strut its colourful stuff through our borders as boldly and brightly as can be, for as long as possible. If your garden could do with an injection of flower power right now, then you’re in luck – there are plenty of plants that will do that in…

“Through gardening I have known a deep and profound sense of spiritual well-being” The audience of Gardeners’ World has doubled in the past five months. As you can imagine, this is going down rather well at TV Towers. Some of these extra viewers may have been scraping the lockdown barrel to while away the empty hours but, modesty aside, some may be watching because they enjoy it. What is certain is that many will be new to gardening. The average age of a BBC2 viewer is 62, and you tend to have worked out by that age whether you’re a gardener or not. But a high percentage of our new audience – all 1.5 million of them – is younger than average. Thank goodness for that. So hopefully this is…

When Richard Applegate and his partner Nathaniel moved into their apartment block in East London 12 years ago, they were keen to get growing. But there was a hurdle – their garden was a 35m-long communal rooftop without a patch of soil in sight! But this didn’t deter green-fingered Richard, who has slowly built up an incredible collection of more than 250 pots, bursting with fragrant flowers and delicious edibles, creating a space where the human and wildlife residents can meet and thrive. What was the garden like when you moved in? It was pretty much unused, with just a few pots that contained some sad-looking plants – it was unloved, grey and boring. Since we moved in, we have gradually brought in more containers and we now have hundreds…

Tomatoes Pick as the fruits ripen, and feed weekly to keep them coming. Don’t overwater – this can split the fruits and dilute the flavour. When night temperatures fall to 10°C, bring in any last outdoor fruits to ripen indoors, still on the vine if you wish. Greenhouse plants can continue growing. Look out for blight, a blackening of the leaves and fruit that kills plants – pick all the tomatoes (ripe or not) on affected plants. apple  Pick when they can be plucked easily from the tree – they’re ready if they come away with a gentle twist. Use any that are damaged first, only storing perfect, blemish-free fruits. Enjoy fresh ■ Apples will keep in a bowl at room temperature for several weeks. Save for later ■ Store…

By now our gardens may be a little frayed around the edges. Spring growth has lost its zing and summer flowers are slowing down. Shrubs and herbaceous perennials may be getting shaggy and the garden looking rather unkempt. But a judicious pruning session can quickly reinstate order and give you time to enjoy your garden while the weather is – hopefully – still on our side. Pruning now can improve next year’s flowers and fruits too, especially on trained fruit trees. Hebes and lavender can be shaped and tidied after flowering, and the summer pruning window for plants like wisteria and pyracantha is still open. For some evergreen hedges, such as box, privet and thuja, it’s now or never, as the nesting season for birds comes to an end and…

The Jewel Garden hits its highest notes in August. All the really rich jewel colours come to the fore and the thicker light from a lower sun brings out the full velvety sumptuousness of this palette. We love to cut lots of these flowers and bring that richness indoors, but there is a trade-off between choosing the best for a really dramatic display and not raiding too much glory from the borders. The solution is to have a bed that is exclusively allocated to plants for cut flowers. We have two of these beds in the Cottage Garden and while all the permanent planting around them is based on soft, pastel shades, these cut-flower beds also have all the flaring colours of the Jewel Garden. This means that we can…

STEP BY STEP Trim your hedge Use a powered hedge trimmer or shears to clip your hedge. Choose a day when the weather is a mild and dry to do this job, as this will cause the least stress to the hedge. It’s a good idea to lay down a sheet of tarpaulin where you are working – it will make tidying up clippings at the end much easier. 1 START by trimming the sides of the hedge, working from the bottom up. Make large sweeping movements with the blades parallel to the face of the hedge. Stop regularly to keep your eye aligned with the level surface. 2 TRIM along the top of the hedge, sweeping off the clippings regularly as you work along. If your hedge is…

Non-stop homegrown – discover how to keep delicious pickings coming year-round New to gardening? No worries! Our experts solve your problems Pots for shady spots – get instant colour with our easy recipes Spring bulb special! Follow MONTY’S planting advice and discover the best bulbs for your garden Revive your borders with CAROL’S expert advice on dividing, replanting and more Need plant combo inspiration? ADAM explains the basics to help you get it right Make your garden water wise – ALAN on why NOW is the time PLUS Save your own veg seed ■ recipes for homegrown ■ how to sharpen up hedges ■ add style with houseplants…