FEBRUARY
Things to Do Keep up to date in the garden with our monthly guide to key gardening tasks
Checklist Use a hoe to work organic fertiliser into the surface of your border soil for a gradual release of nutrients in spring. Order compost, pots and seed trays so you’re ready for the busy season ahead. Prune late-flowering shrubs such as hardy fuchsias and Buddleja davidii between now and March. Cut them right down, almost to the ground, feed with organic fertiliser and mulch around the base of the shrub.
SOW early crops
IMAGES SHUTTERSTOCK; ALAMY
If sown now and protected from the cold, peas, broad beans, spinach, cabbage and some salad crops will give you an early taste of spring Vegetable seeds should not be sown outdoors too early; sowing directly into the soil at this time of year is a sure-fire path to disappointment. When the temperatures are low, the seed won’t germinate and will just go to waste. It’s far better to wait until there are signs of life, such as weed seeds germinating, to know that your sowings will thrive. However, if you’re impatient to get started, you can get a head start by warming up the soil with clear plastic sheets or cloches, ready for sowing in a few weeks’ time. After three to four weeks, rake the soil to a fine tilth and use a cane to
make drills for sowing. Water and then sow hardy vegetable seeds, such as peas, broad beans and summer cabbage, as thinly as possible, replace the soil and put the cloche back to cover them. When the seedlings
are large enough to handle, thin out to the spacing specified on the seed packet. In a greenhouse, sowings made now can be planted out in a month or so when conditions are warmer. Try sowing peas and hardy salads into lengths of plastic guttering. Make drainage holes in the bottom of the guttering and fill with compost. Sow the seeds into the compost and give them a good water. When they’re ready to be transplanted, simply slide the seedlings into a shallow trench in the soil outside and cover with a cloche to protect them until spring has truly sprung.
Deadhead winter pansies and violas for continued flowering throughout spring. If you didn’t plant lily bulbs in autumn, pot them up now to plant out later in spring. Lilies need to be planted quite deeply, so use large pots. Keep in a cool greenhouse or coldframe
A YEAR IN THE ENGLISH GARDEN 25
