2024/09-Page 3-Your Garden in September

Watch out for lily borer and spray regularly with Garden Ripcord if necessary.

Your hydrangeas should be shooting so continue feeding yours with a general-purpose fertiliser and water regularly.

To enhance colour of pink blooms, dust the soil around the plants with lime, and to enhance blue blooms sprinkle some aluminium sulphate around the roots of your plants or spray it onto the leaves by diluting 25 grams of aluminium sulphate into 5 litres of water; repeating every two weeks until January.

Once your clivias start to bloom you can rest assured that spring has finally arrived. In the winter you need to keep them a bit on the dry side but now you can start watering more regularly.

To keep them looking at their best, apply a layer of compost and a dressing of bone meal to the soil in late winter, or once they have finished blooming.

Pinch back the young growing tips of fuchsias regularly to encourage them to bush out.

Mulch your Azaleas, Camellias and Gardenias with acid compost, water regularly and feed with a food for acid loving plants.

Camellias also make their annual flush of new growth in spring when they have finished blooming, so feed them with a slow release nitrogen fertiliser and water it in well.