During the last year we have certainly experienced some extraordinary weather and as a result gardens are full of wonderful colour and we are having a bumper fruit crop. Blight on potatoes and tomatoes has been bad and severely diseased plants should be burnt. Some trees are suffering because of last year’s drought and the dry spring this year, and some have died and will need to be felled. Lawns are looking quite good but now is the time to apply autumn turf fertilizer so that they are ready for winter. Keep up with the weeding and dead-heading and cut down the tall border plants once they have finished flowering. Daffodils, tulips and other spring-flowering bulbs are now in the garden centre: buy them now whilst the selection is at its best and plant them out over the next few months. Bulbs for growing indoors in bowls should be grown in bulb fibre and these should be planted as soon as possible. Pansies and polyanthus, primroses, violas and cyclamen are all ready now for planting in the garden or in hanging baskets and containers. Wallflowers, sweet williams, forget-me-nots and Canterbury bells will be ready for planting soon. We should be well on with harvesting in the vegetable garden and can soon start to plant the early onion sets. Keep up with the late salad planting and put in a few more brassicas. Regularly water the tomatoes and runner beans and watch out for the caterpillars on the brassica crops. Now is the best time to sow sweet peas under glass so that plants will be ready for planting early next spring. This is a good time to take cuttings of shrubs and climbing plants. Container-grown shrubs and perennials can be planted still.

We are now getting ready for the autumn flower shows. Sarratt and Bovingdon both have their autumn shows on 8 September and here in Chipperfield our Autumn Show is on 22 September. Well worth a visit is the Malvern Autumn Show which is described as ‘the perfect end to the garden year’ – this takes place on 29 and 30 September and tickets can be obtained by phoning 01684 584924.

Terry Simmonds