august is the cruellest month

August is the least satisfactory month for gardening.  I have noticed in the past, and a gardening journalist wrote just the other day (I forget who said it, or where), that the number of gardens that open as part of the Yellow Book scheme drops right away in August.  So it is a national phenomenon, not just a peculiarity of gardening in a dry corner of the country on light soil.

Part of the problem is that the broader garden scene of trees and hedges is looking so tired.  Leaves are dark, dusty, and drooping slightly from water stress.  The optimism and abundance of spring and even high summer are gone, but the autumn tints are not yet arrived, just the odd yellow leaf to add to the jaded atmosphere.  I plant later flowering shrubs, such as the hydrangeas, and some real gems like the lovely, scented Abelia chinensis, which is now coming into flower, but whereas the early flowerers such as the Dapbne bholua shine like gems in an austere landscape, the late bloomers look more like a corsage optimistically pinned to a dress that could honestly do with a wash and a good iron.  The second flush on the repeat flowering roses is nice, but doesn't have the heady generosity of the June display.  The tender perennials like dahlias and pelargoniums provide some light relief near the house, but they can't lift the whole landscape.

Many plants that are naturally adapted to dry summer conditions don't do much at this time of year.  In spring and early summer they bloom, in autumn they grow, in late summer they are dormant.  There are exceptions, of course, like the seed heads of the giant oat grass Stipa gigantea, that flutter gracefully above head height, but many of the later flowering perennials that grace the huge herbaceous borders of some grand traditional gardens are really not happy in the north Essex coastal strip.  I have got Marina Christopher's excellent book on later flowering perennials, and I read it from time to time, but I haven't yet come away with a long list of things I could actually grow here that would improve my garden in the second half of August.  And yes, I know that foliage lasts longer than flowers, and form and structure are important, and I should concentrate on leaf colour and texture and the shapes of plants.  But they are dusty, and frankly look a bit pissed off, biding their time until September and some cooler air and rain.

Meanwhile, things I thought I could get away without staking or didn't have time to stake have flopped, like the Baptisia australis and Campanula lactiflora.  It's too late to do anything about that now, but I must try to do better next year.  Some of the rambling roses have sent out long mildewed shoots (too dry for them) across the lawns, paths and borders.  I ought to devote my days to trimming and deadheading, to try and make the garden look more kempt, but instead I've been forking weeds and winter casualties out of the island bed, with a view to applying a great deal of mushroom compost and replanting with things that I hope will be robust enough to withstand the winter, and smother the sheeps' sorrel (or rather hide it.  I expect it will still be wandering around in there but I don't care, as long as I can't see it).

It is a good policy in life to live in the present, and try to appreciate the pleasures of whatever it throws at you at the time.  When it hands you lemons, make lemonade, and all that.  But August is the least satisfactory month for gardening.