What to plant in August

Four to plant in August

Late-season colour that goes in now without sulking, plus one sowing that pays off next summer.

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  Bee favourite

  Sedum 'Herbstfreude'

  Hylotelephium spectabile

  Flat plates of dusky pink that darken to rust and then stand all winter. Butterflies land on it like a runway — leave the seedheads up until February.

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  Long-flowering

  Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm'

  Rudbeckia fulgida

  Gold with a black eye, flowering from now until the first frost and never asking for anything. The most reliable late colour there is, and it never needs staking.

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  Shade-lover

  Japanese anemone 'Honorine Jobert'

  Anemone × hybrida

  Clean white saucers on tall wiry stems, lighting up the shady end of the border exactly when everything else is tiring. Give it room — it spreads, and it means it.

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  Sow now

  Foxglove 'Sutton's Apricot'

  Digitalis purpurea

  Sow into a tray this month, pot on in September, plant out in autumn. It flowers next June, and the whole border costs you one packet of seed.

Garden ideas to nick this month

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  Deep soak, twice a week

  Water fewer things, better

  Pots and anything planted this year get a proper drench; the established border can look after itself. Splashing everything lightly each evening is the fastest way to lose the plants that actually matter.

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  Shape it before September

  Cut the lavender back now

  Trim to just above the woody base as soon as the flowers fade, leaving a neat green dome. Leave it and the plant goes leggy and hollow — and once it's bare wood there is no way back.

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  Free plants, five minutes

  Take cuttings while it is warm

  Non-flowering shoots of salvia, penstemon and pelargonium root fast in August warmth. It costs nothing and it is proper insurance against a hard winter taking the parent plant.

A garden to visit

Bressingham Gardens, Norfolk

The island beds, at full tilt

By August the island beds are chest-high — heleniums, crocosmia and grasses all leaning into one another. It shouldn't still look this good this late in the season, and it does.