February Notes from the Studio

An audio tour of the plots over the last month with what to do in yours.

An audio tour of the plots this month and tasks here over the next month. T H E new design plan for the walled garden.

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What to do in February

Last of the slower months

I am still not quite ready for spring , doing the big jobs now to give me a chance in March!

1. Planting trees, shrubs and perennials.

   Perfect timing, certainly for trees. Ideally get them bare rooted or root balled for the most cost effective way of buying and quickest establishment. Whilst you are at it, order and plant shrubs and perennials. They will grow away well if they get a good few weeks to root before producing new growth.

   

   Planting sweet peas in a raised bed, in the polytunnel.

2. Lift and move shrubs

   Great time to do a switch around. I move hydrangeas and sarcoccoca last week. Try to get as much of the root ball up with little damage, dig a hole slightly larger than the root ball, fill back and gently but firmly firm with your heel around the edge of the root ball. Watch for any hard frosts. Newly planted can lift and need gently pushing back down.

3. Pruning

   Two sets of plants can be cut back now, late summer flowering shrubs like buddleja and fuchsias (go really hard on these two, shrubs will flower in this years growth). The other are winter flowering shrubs that will be finishing now. These don’t often need a hard prune but if you did cut out crossing branches in the winter (to bring inside), then now is the time to do it. Open up the shrubs a little to allow good circulation for spring and summer leaves. Dogwoods, continus and physocarpus are good for this.

   Cut back roses hard too.

   

   Good rules of thumb for pruning -

   a. Always use sharp secateurs.

   b. Cut out rubbing or crossing branches

   c. Prune out dead wood.

   d. Lightly prune older, thicker wood and hard prune new growth (to encourage).

4. Perennials

   Continue to cut down old leaves and stems from last years growth and allow the new to emerge.

5. Mulching

   Spread compost around the base of shrubs and trees, beds, borders, anywhere you think it is needed.

6. Weeding

   Perennial weeds are most easily bought up now, whilst growth is slow and the soil is damp. I really hope I manage to get round to mine in the long border!

7. Border Edgings

   I’m hoping to be able to reestablish the edges of some of the bed in the walled garden where grass has encroached and almost double the paths in widths. The edgings can be tossed upside down in a pile and left to decompose. This creates great loam to mix in with my potting composts.

8. New Lawn and paths

   Cardboard has been laid in larger spaces to kill of grass for beds and weeds for paths. Grass seed is best sown in March for that summer bare foot joy.

   

9. Hardy Annual Seed Sowing.

   These seeds can start being sown now (have you finished your plot plans and sowing schedules?!) but suggest sowing few until next month because they can go leggy if sown early. Instead sow slow growers like cobea now and perennials that need longer.

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Harvesting

Shrubs - Sarcoccoca (cut just a stem or two for indoors, heaven), hazel, alder, lonicera ‘winter beauty’, Daphne.

Perennials - Hellebores, artichoke leaves, euphorbia, polyanthus.

Bulbs - Snowdrops, iris reticulata, first golden narcissus and cyclamen.

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The Walled Garden. I redesigned some of the beds and paths - see the new design here

Those huge piles of shredding I told you about.

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Breaking through between the Walled Garden and Braybrooke garden (look how wide those grass paths are now!)

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The new gate post