August can be one of the hottest months of the year.  Where possible use your dish water to water plants unless you still have water available from water butts, the best time for watering is early morning or late evening when it will be more beneficial to the plants, water right at the base of the plant to avoid water wastage.

Jobs For August

• Prune Wisteria
• Prune summer flowering shrubs.
• Deadhead flowering plants regularly.
• Water containers and new plants, by this time of year most of the garden may need watering on a regular basis.
• Collect seeds from garden plants.
• Lift and pot up rooted strawberry runners.
• Feed the soil with manures or fertilisers.
• Lavendar - trim back after it has finished flowering.
• Potted plants - feed with tomato or seaweed fed as compost nutrition will be depleted now.
• Rosemary - take cuttings, pick side shoots from a main stem - strip a few lower leaves off - place each cutting in a gritting mix of compost round the side of the pot - store in a cool, well lit spot - keep well watered.
• Salvia - take cuttings
• Strawberry Tree - select healthy, non-flowering shoots from the current season's growth, and take cuttings that are approximately 10-15cm long.  Remove the lower leaves, dip the cut end in hormone rooting powder, and plant the cutting in a well-draining potting mix.  Keep the cuttings in a warm, sheltered spot with indirect sunlight, and water it regularly until roots develop.
• Thyme - cut back after flowering.
• Wallflower - Erysimum Walberton's Fragrant Sunshine & Erysimum Bowles's Mauve - take cuttings (perenials).
• Wallflower - plant perennials
• Yellow rattle - sow direct to soil
• Achilleas - dead head to encourage more flowers
• Baliota Pseudodictanus - take cuttings of short, non-flowering side-shoots, and root in a propagator.
• Bluebells - divide
• Camillias - water in pots for the next 6 weeks - this will prevent buds falling off in the Spring
• Cornmarigold - sow direct to soil
• Cranesbill geranium - collect seeds and sow in seed trays immediately
• Erigeron Karvinskianus (Mexican Fleabane) (syn.  Profusion) - collect fresh seeds and plant them into seed trays.  Fresh seeds are the best seeds.
• Evergreens - take Semi-ripe cutting
• Field poppy - sow direct to soil
• Foxgloves - sow in pots or direct in soil (plant out in September or next Spring).
• Fuchsia - take soft wood cuttings from fast growing stems about 6-8cm long.  Keep in green house or window out of direct sun.  Put outside next year after danger of frosts.
  
• Hardy annuals - sow under cover to give them the rest of the year to establish strong heathly roots.  Creating strong plants for next year.
• Hellebores - can plant any time of the year if available in garden centres / sow seeds in August
• Iris - lift and divide.  Gently lift them and remove dead or damaged rhizomes, keep the healthy ones and separate them keeping two leaves per rhizome.  Plant them on the surface of the soil in full sun.  The rhizomes like to be baked by the sun.
• Penstemons - take cuttings of 5 to 10cm in length.

More articles about wildlife gardening:

1.  September gardening advice and tips
2.  How to attract birds to your garden
3.  How to attract bees to your garden
4.  Sowing and growing wildflowers