Your February Garden
The evenings are finally getting lighter, we are slowly but surely beginning to edge our way out of winter. While there are still a few icy days to come, there are still plenty of gardening jobs for the year that you can get on with, even some planting that can get underway! Your February garden starts now!
It is time to cut back your garden! It may seem counter productive to chop your plants back but it will encourage growth and mean a much fuller garden later in the year. This month you should be pruning wisteria, summer flowering clematis, apple and pear trees. Cut back grasses and winter flowering shrubs, as well as vines that may block windows, gutters and roof tiles. It is also time to trim deciduous hedges before they start taking over your garden! Remove faded flowers from your winter pansies to stop them from setting seed and dying, if removed they should then sprout new flowers in the coming months!
This month you can begin sowing and planting! Now is a great time to plant lilies and allium bulbs as well as barefoot roses and fragrant winter flowering bulbs. It’s a good idea to now start planting last years cuttings, try starting with hardwood cuttings and rooted cuttings of tender perennial plants. Take the time to separate your snowdrop bulbs.
Heading to the fruit and vegetable patch, mulch your fruit trees to conserve the moisture in their roots. This mulching will not act as a fertiliser but instead compliments it, so be sure to add some supplements to see your trees really perform this year. As well as boosting your fruit trees, you must also protect them. Protect the blossom on apricots, nectarines and peaches to yield a better crop later in the year. You should also net over the rest of your fruit and veg crops to stop the being eaten by birds and small animals. Get sowing your vegetable seeds! Leeks, onions and celeriac seeds can be sown now. For the best potato results, it is time to chit your potato tubers, by allowing them to sprout shoots. You can do this by placing the potatoes in an egg box, with the small dents in the potato facing upwards. These should then be planted out once the sprouts are 3cm long.
Getting back into the garden and out in the cold will be hard work but so rewarding later in the year! Send us photos of your February garden on Facebook!