"Why, what's the matter, that you have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?"
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
We’ve had our fair share of frosty mornings and hard ground in January so perhaps it’s time to
welcome a little drama in our February garden. There’s another saying along the lines that no two gardens are the same and no two days in one garden are the same. So here we’ll merely suggest what you might be getting on with in your February garden, whatever the weather.
Pruning is good way to start the day and make the bleak look tidier. Cut back the weak growth on summer flowering clematis and give Wisteria a final pruning. Hard prune buddleia and winter flowering shrubs, thin lilac, cut rambler stems, prune apples and pears, and gooseberries; listen to or look up the weather reports and you’ll find a bit of sunshine appearing, so it’s out with the hoe, a spot of digging, tidying borders, top dressing with manure, training climbers.
Ah, the rain’s coming so it’s time to take shelter and do a bit of sowing in the greenhouse or for the windowsill.
- Sow some pansies, violas, petunias and lobelias under gentle heat for summer baskets and containers
- Grow from seed Impatiens – Busy Lizzies – for shady areas, antirrhinums and begonias for splashes of bright colours
- Order plug plants for bedding and grow on ready to plant out after the frosts
- Dig and prepare lawn sites if you’re going to lay turf
- Plant lily bulbs and dahlia tubers in pots in the greenhouse
- Chit potato tubers
- Prepare vegetable seed beds
- Divide snowdrop bulbs
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