What to do in the garden in August:

What to do in the garden in August:

High summer is holiday time, when your garden is at its beautiful peak and you've got the leisure to enjoy it to the full. Keep things looking tip-top with our jobs to do this month.

General tasks:

• Neaten bed edges with a sharp edging iron followed up with the edging shears for a pleasingly tidy finish.
• Top up water baths for wild birds and clean them regularly with mild disinfectant to keep disease at bay

Ornamental garden:

• Prune rambling roses as soon as they've stopped flowering, pruning sideshoots back to one or two buds and removing the oldest stems at the base.
• Trim lavender once flowers have faded, snipping foliage back into neat hummocks.
• Protect dahlias from earwigs with traps made out of flowerpots stuffed with straw and upended on canes.

Kitchen garden:

• Leave some courgettes to become marrows so you can ripen them in the sun to store somewhere cool and dry – they'll keep for months.
• Collect coriander seed to use crushed into curries as a spicy flavouring, or to save in paper bags ready to sow next year.
• Sow lettuces in pots in the cold frame so you can just drop them in to gaps as they appear to keep the crops coming.