Peter's Gardening Tips for February

February – a fickle month

February is a fickle month of weather – snow, rain, hail, gales – Storm Erik, frosts, now mild!

The delightful signs of spring are pushing up out of the ground despite the weather with bulbs starting to peek through and the best ones to my mind are the snowdrops!

Galanthophiles - the Latin name for snowdrops - are in their element and a favourite for many gardeners and I admit to being one of them! I have recently visited the Physic Gardens in Chelsea, London to see 50 varieties for sale, from £300 for a single bulb to a couple of pounds for a clump!

Wherever you live in the country you won’t be far from gardens open to visit.  The National Garden Scheme (www.NGS.org), affectionately known as the Yellow Book, has ‘snowdrop’ gardens with 95 gardens listed.

The birds are beginning to sing, Queen bumblebees are waking up from hibernation, honey bees on snowdrops and even a peacock butterfly this week.  Next week we will probably be back to winter!? 

As we step closer to spring there are plenty of jobs to do:

1. If your ground isn’t too wet, vegetable areas should be weeded and roughly dug over with the addition of compost/mulch on the surface.  Unless you use the ‘No-Dig’ method, (see Charles Dowding), let the worms pull it down when it warms up.  Frost will break up heavy soil, but it is too early to apply fertiliser as the soil temperatures are too cold.
2. 6x Natural Plant Food can be added in small quantities as a mulch.  Remember it is highly concentrated so spread thinly.
3. Check bamboo canes and hazel poles to ensure they are up to the job of supporting your coming season’s crop.  If you have access to hazel – cut for pea sticks and new bean poles.
4. Clear old brussel sprout plants, cabbages etc.
5. Try to start the season free of weeds, it makes for less weeding later on.
6. Order you veg seeds for the coming season or pop to your local garden centre. Some seed potatoes are in short supply after last year’s drought!!

Other jobs ideal for February:

Dead wooding: Japanese acers have a lot of dead twigs in them – they go white and are very brittle.  Run your fingers through the branches gently from the middle of the tree to the tips of the branches like a comb.  For larger dead stems use secateurs to cut out.  This can also be done with Rhododendrons and Pieris.  You can also feed these and camellias with Vitax Sequestered Iron Plant Tonic if the leaves are yellowish.

Herbaceous Borders: Cut down old flowered stems, but leave grasses until March.  Use a spring tine rake to flick out old dead twigs, stems and leaves.  Mulch and try not to tread on new bulbs and shoots pushing through.

Sowing: If you are lucky enough to have a heated greenhouse or heated propagator you can start sowing tomatoes, salad crops like spinach, lettuce (such as cos or mixtures), cress, radishes and beetroot can be started even as baby leaves.

Start broad beans off in root trainers, sweet pea tubes or Vitax Grow Tubes. Talking of sweet peas, if you didn’t start them off last autumn you can sow then between now and March.

Any gardener will tell you there is nothing more exciting than seeing your first seedlings germinating, pushing through the soil or popping out of their seed case, truly fantastic.

Please keep in mind that mice and voles love seeds and seedlings as well as emerging slugs or snails.  Slugs and snails killed in February will be adults that have hibernated during the winter, so control now to reduce the problem later on, use Vitax Slug Gone or Vitax Slug Rid.

Put cloches over cold or wet soil to warm and dry up, black plastic can also be used, but make sure it is well weighted down to stop flapping around.

Later this month if the weather allows and the soil warms up, sow parsnip, peas, carrots and garlic. If not already planted, shallots and onion sets can also go in.

Fruit Trees: Apply Vitax Winter Tree Wash before the buds break.  Continue to prune apples and pears. Ideally by the end of this month, Vitax Fruit Tree Grease needs applying or fruit bands, and also check ties and stakes.  Peaches need spraying with Vitax Copper Mixture to prevent peach leaf curl.

Mulch trees, but keep mulch away from the trunk of the tree and remove if piled up against the trunk.  If fruit trees are growing in grass, remove a circle or square of turf around the trunk and mulch, this enables less competition for the tree.

Fruit Bushes: Blackcurrants and gooseberries need pruning.  I like to cut out old stems on bushes especially opening out the middle of the plant allowing more air and light and less gooseberry sawfly.  Remove very low branches and aim for a ‘Goblet Shape’. If you grow standard gooseberries or currants then you prune differently. The RHS website has some great tips.

Talking of fruit, I came across something new to me the other day whilst visiting a wonderful old garden in Sussex.  An old fig tree growing against a wall had been attacked at the base of the tree by wood mice or voles, completely stripping the bark.  They had also dug under the tree around its base causing an amazing amount of damage – so keep a watchful eye for any signs of activity.

Raspberries – autumn fruiting canes - need cutting to the ground.  I leave a few of the strongest canes to give some early fruit. Cut off the top fruited part, invariably they are canes that grew late in the season.  If you want a superb variety go for ‘Joan J’, I think they are better than ‘Autumn Bliss’ and once cut down, weed mulch with compost/manure as raspberries are hungry plants.

Flower Garden: Lots to think about here – what shall I grow for tubs and containers?  Where do I need more colour in the garden?  What colours do I/we like?  What height colour do I need – front of border, middle or back?

The choice is huge, whether to grow from corms, bulbs or tubers. New season lilies, gladioli, dahlia, nerines, cannas etc are ready to choose from.

Then there are the seed collections.  Be adventurous and trial something new and completely different, seeds are remarkably good value.

Seed Sowing: Buy good quality seed compost.  Bring the compost into the greenhouse to warm up. Wet compost isn’t nice to work with and certainly not ideal for germinating seeds.  Start with clean seed trays, cell trays and lids as there is less chance of overwintering bugs and beasties.

Don’t forget to label everything you sow with the name and date sown.  If cold weather continues leave seed sowing unless you can maintain 18⁰C to enable most seeds to germinate successfully.

Most seeds fail from soil temperatures being too low or too high.  A soil thermometer is a great purchase.  The obvious thing is to read the seed packets, they have fabulous cultural instructions to hand.

February is also your chance to help our British Birds and give them a new home.

National Nest Box Week: 14 – 21^st February

Look on the www.BTO.org website for more information.  I can’t recommend more highly the Woodcrete Nest Boxes.  I have some more than 15 years old – no maintenance and no squirrels or woodpeckers getting in!!

Please keep the birds fed and watered, there is very little natural food left at this time of the year for garden, woodland and farmland birds.

As the days lengthen more birds start to sing.  If you are out for a walk, stop and close your eyes and listen, work out how many songs you can hear from which direction, then see if you can identify them, its good fun, enjoy! 

Happy gardening everybody.

Peter

About Peter Mills:

Peter has over 35 years’ experience in horticulture working in garden centres before becoming a radio gardening presenter with BBC Radio Southern Counties. Working as a freelance consultant, Peter works with the RHS as an external advisor as well as trouble-shooting many gardening-related problems for a range of clients. A regular blogger for silversurfers.com, Peter provides ‘Top Ten Tips’ each month for VGW readers.