Gardening tasks for February
I’m always pleased to see the back of January and if the weather permits, February can be a very busy month in the garden. Here’s what you can be getting on with this month:
- Using a good sharp pair of secateurs cut down deciduous ornamental grasses that you left for overwintering, before the new shoots start to appear. Finish cutting back any herbaceous perennials, and lift, divide and replant as necessary and weed and mulch herbaceous borders.
- Get blunt and inefficient secateurs served and sharpened and don’t forget to oil them after each use.
- Get electric propagators dusted off, and switch them on to make sure they are working before you start the season’s seed sowing
- Sow Kelsae Onion seeds towards the beginning of the month for prize-winning exhibition onions in the summer
- As snowdrop flowers start to fade at the end of the month, you can lift and divide congested clumps and and plant the divisions elsewhere in the garden for an even better display next year. It’s also a good time of year to purchase bulbs “in the green” – that is potted growing bulbs. You can fill containers with these for an early Spring display, or use them to fill any gaps in the garden.
- Towards the end of the month you can prune back late flowering Clematis by cutting back to a healthy bud about 12” from the ground. You can also make a start pruning Buddleia if the weather is mild enough – reduce the height by about half to encourage bushy growth lower down the plant. Then in late March you can prune them back even further to a strong bud.
- Any deciduous shrubs that are growing in the wrong place can be moved this month, while they are still dormant. Try to dig them out with as big a rootball at possible to give them the best chance. This is probably the last month for planting bare-rooted plants such as roses and hedging plants. If you haven’t got round to ordering your hedging plants give Woodside a phone to discuss what is still possible. Don’t forget to use Rootgrow with all planting of woody plants as this really helps root establishment.
- Epimediums will be coming in to flower shortly, but you’ll need to cut back all the old foliage to be able to see the flowers. This sounds quite drastic, but fresh leaf growth will follow the flowers and will look good for the rest of the year.
- Finish the winter pruning of fruit trees such as apples and plums and cut autumn fruiting raspberries right back to the ground. Spray fruit trees with organic Winter Wash to clean them up of pests and diseases and apply a generous layer of mulch or well rotted farmyard manure to the base.
- Chit First Early seed potatoes, such as Caledonian Pearl or Rocket by placing then on trays or in cardboad egg boxes and stand in a cool light place for about 6 weeks to allow shoots to form
- Prepare vegetable beds by weeding them and applying a thick layer of mulch or compost
- Sow Sweet Peas in small pots or in Root-trainers and stand on a sunny window sill or in a heated greenhouse
- Apply handfuls of Sulphate of Potash around fruit trees and bushes to encourage fruit crops
- Check the dates on seed packets to see if they are worth keeping. Open packets should be thrown away and replaced, unless they have been stored in a fridge