Gardening – Feb 23

Tom Strowlger

@garden_with_tom

February is the last month of meteorological winter; it brings us gardeners optimistic signs that springtime is just around the corner. The days are pulling out, wildlife is becoming more active and the garden is starting to come to life, with a wide range of spring bulbs sprouting through the soil of our beds, borders, pots and containers. Snowdrops and crocuses are already flowering whilst daffodils, hyacinth, muscari, alliums and tulips await prolonged milder spells of the forthcoming season.

We have the last opportunity to get ready for springtime by giving our shrubs a prune before the growing season arrives. The ground will be moist so, during milder spells of weather, we can plant newly bought bare root shrubs, trees and roses into the garden. The weather in February can vary from frosts and snow to milder sunny day, so we gardeners will need to keep an eye on the weather forecast.

This month we gardeners can get well ahead of the growing season; we can start sowing the seeds of our favourite summer annual flowers in indoor propagators and seed trays. The freshly sown seeds require the warmth and light of a greenhouse or bright indoor room for the germination process to be successful. A few favourites seeds include cosmos, cornflower, nigella, rudbeckia, sweet pea, salvia and zinnia.

It is the perfect time to create a new border in the garden or build a raised bed, either provides extra space to plant, grow and enjoy even more plants and flowers.  A border can be dug out directly into the ground and raised bed built by placing railway sleepers into an interlocking shape of your choice and filling it with a bottom layer of soil and top layer of general purpose compost.

We can plant out our late spring and summer bulbs, tubers and corms into new and existing raised beds, borders and planters. Alliums, anemones, lilies, begonia, crocosmia and dahlia flowers will make the garden burst with bright colours in the longer and warmer days of spring and summer.

The pots, containers, tubs and planters in the garden will have taken a battering over winter so we need to get them ready for springtime by giving them a clean, checking the drainage holes and adding pieces of a broken terracotta pot into the base to improve the soak-away process.

We can see our gardens coming back to life and with it our hope of a successful growing season. It is not long before we can spend much more time in the garden, pottering about and enjoying more fresh air. We can tackle the last of the winter jobs knowing that in the coming months the garden will be blooming with more colour.

Please do follow me on Instagram @garden_with_tom for more seasonal gardening advice and tips.