AUGUST: THE SUMMER'S LAST STAND
“This morning, the sun endures past dawn.
I realize that it is August: the summer's last stand.”
— Sara Baume, A Line Made By Walking
We have finally reached temperatures and skies that we can confidently call Summer. We had pizza in the orchard last night, and I have to walk the dogs late in the evening to avoid the scorching heat of the day. This summer has been so late coming, I don't know whether to welcome it or see it as a chore to get through before tweed season. However, it is undeniably here, and so we can finally get into the August jobs. Unless of course you are on holiday.
Everybody seems to be on holiday for the next fortnight.
SAVING & SOWING SEEDS
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We are also planning lots of perennials from seed, some of them collected from my plants and some of them bought in from organic/biodynamic suppliers. It is very nearly hardy annual sowing time too, so get prepared.
Just today, I have popped and podded a whole pile of hesperis and the first of the nigella. The poppy jars are filling up and I have taken to squeezed sweet pea pods as if I am testing a peach for ripeness. I think Watermelon will be the first to pop. Slightly more worried about the Bix and the Piggy Sue, which feel like a clear month behind.
Remember, there are some absolute cardinal rules for seed saving:
Knowing when they are ready: touch, sight & sound
Too early and the seed won't be ripe. Too late and your precious seeds will be scattered to the four winds. Collect seed when it comes loose with a light touch, when they rattle, or when there is a change in colour.
Ripe seed will fall into your hand willingly.
The change in colour is almost always from lush green to a deep, autumnal brown. Check daily when you think they are close, just touching or tapping, or unpeel one to see the progress of the seed. Some seed will dry and ripen even after the flower has been cut (digitalis always surprises me like that) but if you possibly can, let it ripen on the plant.
Handle with care
Seed wants to be dispersed so it can be quite tricky to catch. Use a paper bag and a lot of care to maximise your harvest. Putting the bag over the seed head before cutting the stem will help for poppies.
Label immediately.
Be mindful of moisture
Harvest on a dry day, and make sure the seed is free of insects and completely dry before storing. Keep in paper bags or envelopes in a cool, dry, frost free place. If you lucky enough to be at the jam jar scale, then a sachet of silica will be useful. You are aiming for cool and dry conditions if you want to store. Never collect into plastic.
CUTTING AND ENJOYING
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There's a new idea in gardening. This doesn't happen very often (the no-dig and regenerative gardening movement excepted) and this one has the benefit of making me laugh.
Liveheading.
Yes, like deadheading, the job you have to do to keep on top of, a necessary evil to keep dahlias and roses pumping out the blooms, but done a week earlier. Can you see where this is going yet? Cut deep into the plant, be bold, and fill your house with flowers.
Usually by the first week of August I would be starting to wonder what to do with all the dahlias, but they are, like everything else this year, late. However, the roses continue to bring joy by the bucketful, so those are for the chop. They'll be back though.
Note to self: Stop with this by the end of the month, because I want hips for autumn.
WATERING
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In my desire to become a sustainable, regenerative gardener with a balanced soil ecosystem and long tap roots, I do not water much. As in, very very rarely indeed. I try and use rain water where I can and I never have a long enough hosepipe to quite reach the important things. I have been quite comfortable with this as an approach although I do fear it might come at a cost. (Whether this cost is worth it for saving a resource as precious as water remains a question for me to ponder.)
However, we've been curious as to why the two beech hedges we planted four years ago have behaved so differently. One, between us and the next-door neighbours in cottage number 1, is huge. The hedge that was between cottages two and three and is now an irritating legacy boundary between the combined back gardens, is half the height and a quarter as happy. It doesn't cut to a strong shape, the leaves never look quite as glossy, and it generally looks tufty.
I have started rising early to beat the heat, and in doing so, I discovered that the next-door neighbours have sprinklers on a timer, and every single morning, they soak the entire garden. Indeed, they are so obsessive about watering they once asked me what underground irrigation system I used; they assumed I had some clever hack to water because they couldn't understand why they never saw me doing it.
So yes, the reason why that boundary hedge is twice the size of everything else, is hydration. They also put Growmore on everything, so that might have something to do with it too, but let's not even go there.
I cannot bring myself to use a sprinkler, but I confess I have been more diligent with my watering can and my pots since I put two and two together.
EDITING
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August is a time of abundance and there is a fine line between abundance and flopping. Precious plants can be snapped or squash, either under the weight of their own bounty, or because of the vigour of the plants around. Look carefully and stake, cut back or pull out if things have got out of hand.
I love it when self-sown plants come together and form a matrix. However, the rule of planting in clumps of threes or fives is a very wise one because it helps the eye make sense of what's happening. You might have spaces where everything is starting to knit together beautifully, and you might have space where it just looks a tangled mess. If the latter, try and pull out plants that are coming between established groups or clumps, and see if that improves things.
If everything is looking very messy, and you simply don't know why, take a photo and go inside, make a cup of tea and then look at it. The chances are it will be too many similar textures too close together, very tall plants and very short plants in the same planting scheme, or things are falling over.
Extra challenge, make the photo black and white, and you'll see that, nine times out of ten, it's about texture and scale, not colour. The colour is just what we see first.
On the subject of editing, I am giving a gift to my future self by pulling out plants I don't like. I cannot tell you how hard I find this. Partly because killing living things is an anathema to me and feels like the destructiveness of human hand writ large. Also, it is guaranteed that, no sooner as the purple dahlia touched the compost heap, someone will post a picture of it on Instagram in a daring and subversively creative design with a flattering filter and that exact plant that I so callously discarded is now the one I crave. God, social media is so tiresome sometimes.
PLANNING AHEAD
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Ok, so I might be somewhat unusual in being entirely preoccupied by next summer rather than living in this, but that's because I am in the middle of the third big redesign in five years. This is the time to be thinking ahead though. September is a great time for sowing next year's seed, and this includes perennial seed, so looking at spaces and pots, schemes and combinations, thinking about what worked and didn't and coming up with ideas for even more lovely things is timely.
Lots of people have messaged asking to see the plans that Kristy has now shared, and I will do a whole series on them once I have the whole vision in my mind's eye. There is no rush for this because it will involve moving quite big plants and trees, and this can only be done in autumn. But now is the time for standing in the garden and considering options Preferably just before sunset with a glass in my hand. This is gardening at its easiest; I adore the planning stage. Digging up beech trees, slightly less so.
ORDER BULBS
Have you ordered your tulips? Do it. You'll be winning at life. The catalogues are now open.