What to do in the garden this month?
February feels like a turning point in the garden. It’s still cold outside, but there are signs of spring’s imminent arrival everywhere you look. Bulbs are slowly emerging from the ground, and the days are getting longer at last.
Use February to get yourself properly prepared for springtime. The following jobs will set you up for your best growing season yet:
- Prepare your seed beds. As long as the ground isn’t frozen, you can cultivate beds and start to warm up the soil, with fleece, polythene or cloches, in preparation for sowing in the coming months.
- Organise this year’s seeds by sowing date. Get hold of a box with dividers, and file your seed packets by the month they need to be sown in. You’ll be so glad of this effort in the weeks to come.
- Check your tools are sound and your garden machinery is working. Give your tools and equipment the once over and apply a little TLC to anything that needs it. While you're at it, tidy your shed ahead of the imminent planting & sowing season - you'll thank yourself for a clean & tidy space later!
- Blitz perennial weeds in your beds and kitchen garden. Dig them up, roots and all, to get a head start on the blighters before the weather warms up.
- Start chitting early potatoes — stand them on end in a module tray or egg box and place them in a bright, cool, frost-free place. For more potato growing guides and expert advice, visit the nursery.
Look after your lawn
Remember to keep off the grass when there’s a frost, as the blades are more susceptible to damage.
With spring on the way it’s worth preparing your lawn for the season ahead. Try installing lawn edging, which gives a neat and tidy appearance and makes maintenance easier.
The best way to attract more wildlife to your garden is to create habitats where wildlife can feed, sleep and hibernate, such as digging a pond, growing plants for bees or making a log pile. Once you’ve created a few wildlife havens, you can sit back and find out which creatures come and visit!
Leave out water and meat-based dog or cat food for hedgehogs that have come out of hibernation early in mild weather, as they’ll be hungry.
Put up nesting boxes for birds, which usually start looking for places to raise their young in mid-February. It’s never too late to fit a new nest box – a sheltered spot facing north-east is the best option. Leave a variety of protein- and fat-rich foods for birds every day, which they can turn to as and when they need to.
A bit on Sustainable Gardening
Pollinators need our help. Loss of habitat is one of the main reasons why we see fewer bees, butterflies and other insects visiting our gardens.
Help slow and reverse the declines in bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies and other pollinators by growing a wide variety of plants including a mixture of native, near-native and exotic plants to support pollinator diversity.
Switch from mains to rains in your garden to save carbon. Make your pledge on mains2rains.uk.
Use a water butt containing water that falls onto your roof instead of turning on a tap from the mains supply, or use a watering can instead of a hosepipe. So far 6.6 million litres of water have been pledged to save on the RHS mains2rains website, equivalent to taking 82,385 baths – saving enough carbon equivalent to charge 1.3 million smartphones.
I hope 2024 brings with it a bit better gardening weather than 2023! 🌱