As summer continues through the month of August we won’t need to be reminded that autumn is just around the corner. In the kitchen garden I’d harvested most fruit and vegetables by late August, prepared some for freezing and made all manner of pickles, tarts and soups whilst the crop was as fresh as possible. Now as September begins, trying to keep the show going with the occasional feed and tidy up is the order of the day in the flower garden. Keeping the flowers blooming prolongs the pretence that summer is still with us and dead heading is an important task now if you want flowers for as long as possible. This is particularly true of the dahlias that will continue to give us colourful blooms until the first frosts if we deadhead them. Alstromerias will last until then if the flower stems are pulled up when they are finished. Geraniums will keep on flowering as long as they are cut back and don’t start to set seed. In my garden, the Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ was cut back after flowering earlier in the summer and should have been giving another flush of flowers at this time of the year. I use the word ‘should’ because Tom, (the trainee I have working with me this year) cut back the foliage in error so no new flowers for me. No worries - mistakes happen and learning from them improves our gardening skills!

If your borders are starting to look a little tired, it may be time to start thinking about including some late summer/early autumn flowering plants to it to prolong the colour. The late flowering hylotelephiums, heleniums, helianthus, rudbeckias, phlox and asters are good choices as are the plants in the solidago genus. Most of us will have seen the bright yellow Goldenrod,   Solidago ‘Goldenmosa’ but may not have come across Solidago ‘Little Lemon’ which is much brighter. Solidago ‘Golden Wings’ is tall at 2m with a spread of half that so it really makes a statement in the border. Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’ is a sparkler of a plant as its name suggests and is late flowering. Another late flowering beauty is Leucanthamella seratina. It is one of the last leucanthemums to flower in the garden. It is a tall plant and its large delicately petalled flowers turn to face the sun. It pairs nicely with late flowering tall grasses such as Molinia ‘Skyracer’ or Miscanthus ‘Silberfeder’. Crocosmias are good late flowering perennials to have in the border. Their strappy leaves contrast well with most other garden stalwarts. Everyone is familiar with the bright red (and tall) C. ‘Lucifer’ AGM but there are others that will give a good splash of colour. C. ‘Hellfire’ AGM is becoming extremely popular and rightly so because it is vigorous but not invasive, very floriferous and a good bright red. The orange ‘Emily McKenzie’ has deep red markings on its flowers. C. ‘Carmen Brilliant, C. ‘Castle Ward late’ and C. ‘Cornish Copper are other good varieties. You will need space (and probably tall stakes as well) for C. ‘Zeal Giant’. It is the most striking of them all, shooting up to 1.8m with a spread of 90cm. Yellow varieties are not to be forgotten as they add good, strong colour to the front of the border. The late flowering C. ‘Citron Spray’ produces masses of lemon yellow flowers on tall stems (1.2m) not unlike like Freesias . C. ‘Star of the East’ with its huge 4ins golden yellow flowers held up on tall stems makes a bold statement. C. ‘George Davison’ AGM is a good ‘doer’ as is the dark stemmed Crocosmia crocosmiflora ‘Columbus’, but C. ‘Paul’s Best Yellow’ AGM is outstanding for its’ large egg yolk yellow flowers. Choose from a good range of AGMs in this genus and plant the corms in early spring, 5cm deep and 12cm apart in humus rich soil with not too much sun on them. However, too much shade will result in poor flowering. Plants in pots can be planted at any time. Divide them every three years to maintain their vigour. Simply dig them up and remove all but the last two or three corns that will have formed a line underground if they have not been divided for a few years. Don’t put the spent corms in the compost bin as the heat generated won’t be enough to destroy them. If your garden is particularly cold, cover the plants with a protective mulch in late autumn. Cut the plants down and cover with garden compost or other organic matter.