LOVE YOUR GARDEN THIS FEBRUARY!
FEBRUARY may be a month when people share their love, but it’s also the best time
to get back into your garden to plan and prepare for the coming growing season. A
simple way of spreading love in the garden is to make sure you give your plants and
shrubs some much needed mulching with compost or manure, along with a quick
trim in the form of seasonal pruning to get them ready for the start of spring.
A February feel good moment for gardeners growing their own veg is definitely
chitting potatoes …signposting warmer weather and longer days are on the way.
Potatoes are grown from specially prepared ‘seed potatoes’ (small tubers), usually
planted in spring. With early varieties, the seed potatoes can be chitted (or
encouraged to sprout) before planting, to get them off to a good start and produce an
earlier crop. You can grow potatoes in a small bed, large container or grow bag and
they have wonderful spreading leaves and pretty purple or white flowers that appear
before harvesting.
Braving the cold, February flowers such as snowdrops, irises, cyclamen and
hellebores bring much needed colour and excitement to the garden along with the
first tree blossoms. Both Blackthorn and Cherry Plum can be seen this month.
Blackthorn trees have clouds of snow-white flowers in early spring. They’re best
known for their rich, inky, dark fruits used to make sloe gin. Spiny and densely
branched, mature trees can grow to a height of around 6–7m and live for up to 100
years. Cherry Plum is an ancestor of the domestic plum and one of the first trees to
blossom in the UK, with singular white petal flowers. It’s a broadleaf deciduous tree
and can grow to 8m.
A garden favourite that has a delicate ‘blossom’ in the spring and early summer but
only grows to around 1m tall is the evergreen, perennial shrub Rosemary
Rosmarinus officinalis. Loved by pollinators attracted to its small blue or white
flowers, Rosemary requires minimal pruning and attention. It is hardy enough to
survive the winter months and can live for up to twenty years. It’s also a versatile
culinary herb and used as a herbal infusion. Rosemary tea contains compounds
shown to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects and can help
reduce anxiety and boost mood.
There are definite signs of the approaching spring, with bulbs appearing and wildlife
waking up and here are top tips for the month from the RHS:
Prepare vegetable seed beds and sow some vegetables under cover
Chit potatoes
Net fruit and vegetable crops to keep the birds off
Prune winter-flowering shrubs that have finished flowering
Divide bulbs such as snowdrops
Lily bulbs can be planted in pots
Prune Wisteria , Buddleia and Hydrangea
Renovate overgrown hedges with pruning
Clear up weedy beds before mulching
At end of month, start cutting back deciduous ornamental grasses to allow
new growth to come through
And finally …
“There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the yet
distant, but surely coming, summer.” Gertrude Jekyll
