August—not a month for loafing. 

August is an interesting month in the garden.  On the one hand I just want to sit back and coast through the month and do nothing.  On the other I can see a ton of projects just waiting for me to tackle.  Inevitably I am reluctantly jolted out of my state of complacency by some sort of cataclysmic event like the rain storm we just experienced.

August rains are a mixed blessing.  For gardeners who have a “low maintenance” garden and are used to doing nothing in the summer, rains are a welcomed event.  But for those of us that obsessively manage our yards they can spell disaster.  The perennials that were standing so tall and proud are now flopping on the ground and if we don’t get them staked up immediately they seem to never quite recover from there brief stint of being horizontal.  So let this be a shot over the bow.  Get out there and stake anything up that looks like it might not make it through the next rain event.

Pruning should be high on your list this month too.  I just finished tidying up some of my topiaried conifers and evergreen hedges.  I only trimmed off a few inches at most but it made a huge difference in their appearance.  Vines will also need to be reined in this month.  Despite the fact that I pruned my Wisteria and Akebia last month they need it again but just a little off the sides and top, not a butch please.  Save the radical stuff for winter.

I find that my plants get a bit too friendly this time of year and often need to be separated to avoid future conflicts.  Don’t be afraid to snip here and there on shrubs and even trees to open up and let some light and air into their canopies.  While I have no problem with my plants touching each other there is a point at which left unchecked one shrub will over grow another and permanently ruin its form.  It’s up to you to decide you lives and who dies.

If you want to avoid late blight on your tomatoes then get some kind of cover over them before it rains again.  A simple structure of 2 by 2’s and some clear plastic a couple feet above the tops of the plants will keep the rain off of them, trap a little extra heat and usually prevent the dreaded late blight from destroying your crop. 

Tired of zucchini yet?   Replace it with a new planting of leaf crops like lettuce and spinach, swiss chard, onions, garlic, radishes and cole crops like broccoli.  For those of you that planted fall gardens last year and had all your hard work dashed by Mother Nature in December, don’t despair.  Despite the wretched winter, my carrots came through just fine and so should yours if you plant them now.

If your fruit trees are heavy laden with fruit be sure to prop up the branches with some poles so you don’t wake up in the morning and find them broken and lying on the ground.  Apples, pears, peaches and plums all can suffer damage if there is too much fruit on a branch.  Although it should have been done back in June, you can still thin your fruit and improve the quality of what’s left.  While you are fiddling around with your fruit trees be sure and remove all those water sprouts now instead of waiting until this winter.  Head back wild branches too to encourage branching.

While I am not a fan of overusing herbicides, the hot summer weather is a perfect time for spot spraying clover, dandelions and other broad leaf weeds in the lawn before they take over entirely.  Target the pest and save the rest.  In other words, don’t use those nasty weed and feed products that broadcast herbicides over the entire lawn where there may or may not be a weed.  Catch the weeds while they are still small and have not smothered out the grass plants and you will be miles ahead of the game.  Like all things in life, controlling weeds can be easy when done in a timely manner.   And after you have killed the weeds you will need to fertilize the lawn to help it fill in the void left by the weeds.  I just spread some Concern corn gluten fertilizer (all natural) with bone meal and in one week I can see significant improvements. 

Finally, it’s not too early to be thinking about planting tulips, daffodils, crocus and other spring blooming bulbs.  They will be arriving late this month in garden centers and you should shop early for the best selection.