He’s a magnificent broadcaster, gifted gardener, brilliant author and all-round horticultural visionary. This month, Alan Titchmarsh ponders the sound of summer.

There is a curious thing that happens in August gardens, and it’s something many people miss entirely amongst the scarlet blaze of geraniums, the velvet purples of salvias, the soft powder-blue of hydrangeas, the creamy whites of climbing roses.

If you ask me, August is the month to stop looking… and start listening.

It often begins with bees. Stand beside a flowering patch of lavender, perhaps edging a path or tumbling from a terracotta pot, and you’ll hear it immediately, that low, industrious hum.

Thousands of tiny wings, moving with quiet purpose from bloom to bloom. I’ve always found it deeply reassuring, and there is something wonderfully honest about bees. They don’t care what your garden looks like on Instagram. They care only whether it offers something worth visiting.

Then there are the birds. By this point in the year, much of the frantic spring chorus has softened, but listen in the evening and you’ll still hear a lone Common Blackbird singing from the top of a fence post or the highest branch of an apple tree, as if he’s reluctant to let summer go. It’s not the territorial song of spring - it’s something softer, more reflective, almost contemplative.

I often sit outside as dusk begins to fall and listen to that song, and I’m reminded that gardens are not just places to grow plants. They’re places to measure time.

There are, of course, less obvious sounds, such as the whisper of ornamental grasses moving in a warm breeze, the occasional plop of a frog slipping into a pond, or the crackle of dry soil underfoot during a hot spell.

Then you have the snip of secateurs, the hiss of a hosepipe, a lawnmower in the distance and, of course, children or grandchildren having the time of their lives.

A garden should never be silent – not even in the depths of winter. If it is, something is missing.

This August, I would encourage you to use your ears as well as your eyes in celebrating what it is to have outside space. Try to be still, close your eyes, and really take in the eloquent, complex, comforting sounds of what’s all around. It’s arguably summer’s greatest treat, and it’s been there all along.