February Tips for Gardeners

February Tips for Gardeners

Hederefolium

Beginners Tips

  • In the UK it is still too cold to start most seeds and plants. Leave those tempting seedlings in the garden centres and wait until at least the end of the month to sow broad beans, early peas, leeks and sweetpeas.
  • On a fine February morning you can improve your garden with a spring clean. Cut down old annuals that you left in place for the seed heads, edge the lawn if it looks forlorn, and tidy up loose leaves.
  • Treat paths that have moss and algae built up and repair any raised or misplace paving stones.
  • Spread well rotted manure or compost on the top of your vegetable patch and around hungry shrubs like roses.
  • Review seed and plant catalogues and decide what you want to grow and where. If you are going to give each plant enough space you do not need as many plants as you expect so buy fewer good quality seeds and stock.
  • Keep feeding the birds, they will soon have young to feed

Advanced Tips

  • If you left your soil turned over in large clumps for the frost to break them down too a fine tilth, then wait a bit longer as February can have some terrific frosts.
  • With a heated propagator you can start fuchsia cuttings with a bit of bottom heat.
  • Remember all the early plants you start now will need space and protection from frost for quite a while yet. I always grow more than I can protect.
  • Look after your quality tools. Give them a clean and sharpen before they are pressed into really active service. Prepare an oily sand plunge pit so you can quickly oil and clean them in busy period.
  • Prune and reshape fruit trees but not stone fruit which need to wait until summer.
  • Check over and do any preventative maintenance jobs now so you can concentrate your efforts on growing show stopping plants later on.
Growing Anemones

Growing Anemones

phot by Lynne Pettinger

Anemone has over 100 species with several interesting varieties that produce colour and a light form. I have picked out 3 contrasting sorts that are worth seeking out.

Wood Anemones, Wind Flower and Anemone Blanda

  • Daisy-like flowers in white and purple to form a carpet of dazzling colour.
  • These low-growing Anemones are extremely free-flowering and produce an eye catching mass
  • With lush, fern-like foliage, they’re great for planting beneath Daffodils and Tulips, shrubs and trees.

Japanese Anemone

  • Named varieties to look our for Prinz heinrich a semi-double with purple flowers. Queen Charlotte semi-doule pink, September Charm pink, Whirlwind semi-double white and Honorine Joberet the popular white with golden stamens
  • Unlike the spring varieties they flower in Autumn on long stems up to 5′ tall
  • The white Honorine Jubert is a striking plant and flowers in a shady position
  • Propagate economically by root cuttings from established plants

Blousey Florists Anemones

  • Anemone De Caen ‘Hollandia’ a scarlet flower on 10″ stems and St Brigid The Governor have performed exceptionally well this year. I have grown them in peat and peat with some grit to keep the compost open and they have remained reasonably moist.
  • In pots the flowers are less robust than those in the garden.
  • You can grow them from dark wrinkled tubers bought later in summer.
  • Soak overnight in rain water before planting will speed up germination.

Anemone de Caen at T&M

Blue and white wind flowers

Anemone blanda

Top Ten Snowdrop Gardens

Top Ten Snowdrop Gardens

Kew Snowdrops

  1. Waterperry Gardens Oxfordshire
  2. Chelsea Physic Garden London   Snowdrops have always provided one of the great delights of these openings 6th, 7th, 13th & 14th February 2010, 10am-4pm.
  3. RHS Wisley Surrey
  4. Hopton Hall Derbyshire
  5. Weeping Ash Garden Cheshire
  6. East Lambrook Garden Somerset
  7. Sherborne Garden Somerset Local gardens open for the National gardens Scheme
  8. Brandy Mount House Garden Hampshire National collection of snowdrops
  9. Easton Walled Garden & Little Ponton Hall Lincolnshire
  10. Bennington Lordship Hertfordshire

This is our selection unless you know better – if so let us know.
Snowdrop soldiers8

Check for open days in February and March for a day out to enjoy. You may also find snowdrops in unexpected locations. I snapped these pictures in Haworth church Bronte land.

Haworth snowdrops

Snowdrops in an alpine house at Harlow Carr.

Snowdrop

Galanthophiles see beauty many varieties.
snowdrop

Yellow Snow and Yellow Plants

Yellow Snow and Yellow Plants

Snow theme

I was always taught ‘not to eat yellow snow’ but the yellow in our snowy garden caught my attention. This Witch Hazel was positively glowing and offered a bright spark on an otherwise dull day. The tree has seldom been pruned and is now over 10 feet tall with a very lax and open habit. This means I can see large quantities of blossom on the branches in January and get the scent on a still day.

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Send Your Us Favourite Gardener

Send Your Us Favourite Gardener

Harlo 121

Use the comments section
below to send us the name of your favourite gardener (not the gardener themselves).
We will add it to our list of 100+ Top Gardeners

Your nomination may be a gardener who inspired you or has left a legacy in the form of an outstanding garden. Both are true for me with Geoffrey Smith and his Rhododendron garden at the Royal Horticultural Garden Harlow Carr where this memorial stone is displayed.

Celebrity gardeners are well represented in our list but you may know of one we have forgotten. As we admit the plant hunter/gatherers are not well represented and we would appreciate nominations is this category.

Sponsors of gardens are becoming a regular feature at shows like Chelsea but the well-to-do have long financed the gardening exploits to create beautiful surroundings for their homes and estates. Do they deserve more recognition or should that only go to the more earthy recipients of the Victoria medal (VMH).

International gardeners deserve a bigger profile and multiple nominations would be welcome. We would all like to know whose work to look out for when visiting new places.

Best Lawn Edge Trimmers

Best Lawn Edge Trimmers

Garden edgesKeep Off The Grass Not on My Pavement

Neat, well trimmed edges make your lawn and garden look tidy and cared for. World class gardens take care of neat edges especially on formal lawns. In most cases you need to avoid obstructions that prevent achieving a well trimmed edge as these painted rocks do. Grass growing at the base of these rocks is hard to trim to the same length as the rest of your grass even if you use a strimmer.

  • Plants growing close to the edge will get in the way of a lawn mower or over-hang the lawn and weaken the grass.
  • A path in the lawn made from stepping stones should be sunk below the sward so that a lawn mower passes over the path edge and cuts right up to it. If the path is proud of the grass you may damage the mower and leave an untidy edge.
  • Where ever practical leave a gully or channel at the edge of the grass before the planting starts.

 Best Tools for Cutting Edges

Lawn edgers allow you to cut back the edge by removing a sliver of soil. Useful if you have walked near the edge and it has crumbled or spread out.

Strimmers are useful on rough grass and hard to reach spots.
Book CoverBlack & Decker Strimmer

Lawn shears have a blade at 45° to the handles and are my favourite way of trimming lawn edges.
Book CoverBahco Lawn Shears

For many jobs you can’t beat a traditional spade. If you are trimming an edge use a line or string to keep you honest.
If part of an edge is in poor condition you can cut out a square foot as a turf and turn it around by 180° to make the inner cut as the new edge and the ragged part a foot inside the lawn. Fill any gaps with sand or top dressing.

 

 

 

Alpine Plunge Bed

Alpine Plunge Bed

Double Plunge Bed

The new Alpine House at Harlow Carr has a plunge bed to be proud of as you may expect from the RHS. This Dionysia Curviflora has been double potted to facilitate watering and it’s flowers will be purple with a white inner ring and dark centre.

The plunge bed is at a good viewing height and the display can be changed as plants develop and seasons change. As a purpose built, alpine house plunge bed there are several features it would be hard to incorporate in my glasshouse but the rake from front to back and the use of rocks builds up height to provide a landscape rather than a flat two dimensional display.

The sand and gravel mixes vary depending on the plants being grown. Some free planting around the plunged pots adds to the attraction of this type of alpine display. The alpine house is climate controlled but much of the daily watering is done by hand before visitors arrive to view the gardens.

I am now keen to develop a better plunge area for my alpines. That is one of the joys or costs of visiting a best of class display like RHS gardens.

Tip – Study the best and think how you can incorporate new ideas in your gardening. The photo below shows how different coloured chippings and grits can work with your display.

Plunge Bed

Alpine Troughs and Plant Selections

Alpine Troughs and Plant Selections

Alpine trough

Outside Harlow Carr’s new Alpine house are a collection of troughs, stone sinks and other containers suitable for a collection of Alpine plants. The planting varies and is related to the soil and rock conditions each plant prefers. One container has old rotting logs and a richer soil for small rhododendrons and other species. Others have carefully inserted rock slivers to replicate mountain conditions giving shade and more importantly deep root runs and drainage.

Alpines in trough

Whilst the troughs vary in size they are all less than 6 feet by 4 feet and could fit into virtually any garden. There is also many more outdoor containers full of selected plants. I was amazed at the number and variety of plants on display in the middle of November. They are all carefully named on these black labels with a white fiber tip pen which I resolved to try in my garden. On some plants there is a topical note that explains why it currently features or how it is grown. ( An autumn flowering variety of snowdrop fit into that category)

Trough for alpines

The photographs can be enlarged using flickr by double clicking on the image and going to all sizes. I hope the name tags are then visible.
A picture inside the house is available on the RHS website. and for Alpine plant lovers Harlow Carr is now worth a special visit.
The Alpine garden society have a good article on your own Alpine trough

Scented Phlox Give Gardens Aroma

Scented Phlox Give Gardens Aroma

What is the flower that groups of people look at and sheep meet in ? Well it has to be Phlox and in this case the perennial Phlox paniculata.

Top Variety Tips

  • Only 3 feet tall but the pure white Phlox of Mount Fuji earns its AGM. the flaring petals open out from twisted buds to form clusters of flat white scented flowers.
  • Another AGM winner is Bright Eyes with pale pink flowers having a deeper red centre. The foliage may take on the red tinge during summer and it grows to about 4 feet tall.
  • Phlox paniculata ‘Dodo Hanbury-Forbes’ AGM just for its name or Blue Ice or Blue Paradise to balance up the colour scheme.
  • Alpine phlox can also be strongly scented try Pholx divaricata

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