Here are your monthly tips for August:

1. Keeping gardens and containers watered this time of year becomes a daily challenge. Watering early in the day or in late evening will help the water soak into the soil instead of evaporating. It is best not to water between the hours of 10:00 am and 5:00 pm.

2. Now is a great time to start thinking about your fall planting, the end of this month is a great time to start planting again. Look through your garden and see what you might do to improve or enhance your garden.

3. Continue to pick off dead flowers on your annuals, as well as the spent flowers on your perennials. A little time spent on grooming your plants will make a big difference in the overall appearance of your garden. By removing the spent flowers, your plants will not go into the seed producing stage and should continue to flower longer.

4. Summer blooming shrubs should be pruned for shape after they have finished flowering. Also remove any dead or diseased branches.

5. You might start noticing Japanese beetles starting to feed. As there aren’t many natural controls for adult Japanese beetles, an effective natural control is to go into your garden with a jar of soapy water and knock the beetles into it. Insecticidal soap will kill adult Japanese beetles if sprayed directly on the beetle, it does not have any residual effect, meaning that beetles that aren’t sprayed directly won’t be harmed.