TIDEWATER GARDENING

by K. Marc Teffeau, Ph.D.

February Activities

If you can motivate yourself, there are gardening activities to be done both inside and outside the house on some of the milder February days. While it is too early to seed vegetables in the garden, there are other activities in the landscape.

This month, watch for signs of growth in early spring bulbs.

Gradually start removing mulch when foliage reaches one inch high. Cloudy days are best for the initial exposure of leaves to strong sunlight, which can burn tender foliage. Pinch off early buds from developing pansies to encourage plants to branch and form more buds.

Don’t be in a hurry to remove mulch from perennials. A warm day may make you think spring is almost here, but colder weather will return. Also remember to avoid walking on frozen grass and groundcovers during winter. Ajuga is especially sensitive, and large portions can die back if walked on, leaving bare spots in spring. The frozen leaves are brittle and easily damaged.

Even though there might be rain or snow, the soil against a house dries out under the eaves where rain rarely reaches. Be sure to water well during a thaw to prevent loss of plants. Remember that plants require water during winter to replace moisture lost to wind desiccation and lack of precipitation.

My favorite small fruits to grow are red raspberries and blackberries. I do not discourage home

Tidewater Gardening gardeners from growing tree fruit, but brambles are a lot easier and less work. If you grow tree fruit on the Shore, you will have to commit yourself to a spray schedule to get quality fruit.

This two-year growth pattern is typical of all brambles, except for fall-fruiting raspberries such as Heritage. In fall-fruiting red raspberries, the cane flowers in late July, begins fruiting in August and finishes fruiting with the first frost.

Heritage is the most popular cultivar of fall-fruiting red raspberries, but other red primocane cultivars are also recommended for Maryland. The University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information center website lists the following additional red cultivars: Amity, Autumn Britten, Caroline, Jaclyn and Josephine. Caroline, Jaclyn and Josephine are all University of Maryland releases.

February is a good time to do some pruning on bramble plantings. Red, black and purple raspberries and both thorny and thornless blackberries are referred to as brambles. To understand the pruning practices for your brambles, it is first necessary to understand their growth habits.

Brambles have perennial crowns and roots with only biennial canes (which live for two growing seasons). The vegetative shoots that come from the crowns are called primocanes during their first growing season. In late summer, flower buds form on the primocanes and remain dormant through winter. During the second growing season, these buds flower, fruit and then die.

After fall-fruiting raspberries have finished fruiting, you can cut out all the canes because they will produce new fruiting primocanes in spring. For the regular brambles, carefully prune out the dead canes in the plants now and leave the fruiting canes for this year’s production.

If you are like me, you have a varied supply of vegetable seeds that date back a couple of years. Most vegetable seeds have a short life and usually will not be viable after a year or two, especially if they have been stored in a shed or garage. Seeds that fall into this category include sweet corn, onions, okra, beans, parsnips and peppers. I have also found that both garden peas and “sugar” peas lose their viability after about three years. I had some older sugar snap peas that I mixed with fresh pea seed and planted last year. The older ones did not germinate, or if they did, they succumbed very quickly to damping-off disease. The best advice is to use vegetable seed packed for the 2023 season and toss any seed that is two or more years old. It is also important to handle seed packets carefully. Rubbing the outside of the packet to determine how many seeds are inside can break the protective seed coats. This will result in a reduced rate of germination.

If you did not get it done earlier, you can prune hybrid tea roses now, removing old canes and lowering the plants to a height of 12–15 inches. Apply a drop of white glue or place a thumb tack at the end of the fresh-cut canes to prevent borers from laying their eggs on the cut. Also apply a dormant spray of lime-sulfur and dormant oil before active growth appears. Clean up rose beds, discard old foliage and pieces of canes, and remove old mulch with weeds. Re-apply a fresh layer of mulch to the rose beds.

This is also an ideal time to prune clumps of ornamental grasses before new growth appears. Tie the large clumps with rope and cut them to the correct height with a hedge trimmer. If you use hay and manure in the garden, one way to make old hay and manure free of weeds is to spread it on the soil in late winter, water well and cover with black plastic. The weed seeds will sprout after a few days of warm weather and will be killed by frost and lack of daylight.

If you use clay pots for container gardening, February is a good time to clean and disinfect them by soaking in a solution of one part liquid bleach and 10 parts water.

Wear plastic gloves, and scrub the pots with a stiff brush. Rinse thoroughly to remove all the bleach residue. Doing this now will have them ready to be planted with spring annuals. While you are cleaning the pots, conduct a review of your other outside containers and consider replacing any that have been cracked or otherwise damaged. Now is also a good time to hang or clean out bluebird houses before the birds start looking for a home.

I always recommend that you do not reuse potting soil left in containers but rather start the gardening season with fresh growing medium. If you are growing vegetables in raised beds, the soil from the container plants can be recycled into the bed, assuming there were no soil disease problems in the containers. You can also add this soil to a compost pile.

If there is no snow on the ground