Garden Jobs February – It’s Time to Get Gardening

If like me, you’ve felt a bit frustrated by all the snow and frost, unable to get out in the garden and ‘do’ much, then you’ll love my garden jobs for February. There’s less about looking and planning – though I love doing that too – and more about action.

So make yourself a big mug of tea (or coffee) and let’s go outside among those crocuses and snowdrops and get gardening.

Garden Jobs for February

1. Prune Back Ivy

I’m a big ivy fan. While lots of people think it’s a bit of a nuissance, or a bit ordinary and old-fashioned, I think ivy is handsome. It’s fantastic for wildlife; birds love to nest in it, bees love it too. But even I admit you can have too much of a good thing. And if you have ivy, like I do, clamboring all over your shed, then you can find yourself by the New Year with way too much of a good thing!

So one of my garden jobs for February is pruning back the ivy. The same will be true if you have Virginia creeper, Boston ivy or ornamental vines. Get the pruning done now, before the birds start nesting. That’s really important.

2. Wisteria

While I have ivy on my potting shed (which often feels like my home as I’m in it so much) my actual home is our small cottage! This has Wisteria on its front. It’s a very lovely plant. Who can resist those purple lambs tails of blooms dripping elegantly from sculptural, twisting branches.

It combines with our pink climbing rose beautifully. (Well I think it does)

Despite all this loveliness, Wisteria has two draw backs. It’s slow to get going – it can take years to establish. So if you want wisteria on your home, plant it sooner rather than later. The other drawback is it has a slightly convoluted pruning regime. Well it feels that way until you get used to it. I’ve blogged about how to prune wisteria before. So I won’t go into huge detail here. Other than to say, phase two of the pruning happens now. It’s an important one of my garden jobs for February.

In essence all you do is cut back the sideshoots which you previously shortened through summer pruning, to two or three buds. Doing this you take care to avoid cutting off flower buds. Otherwise you will have a mass of leaves and no blooms!

3. Primrose Power

In February I take a short cut to some gardening glamour by potting up a few Primroses into containers. I have a large circular metal dish on my outside table. I plonk five or so cheap and cheerful Primroses in there. Visible from my kitchen window, it provides a splash of much needed colour while I’m waiting for the rest of the patio to get going.

After the Primroses have done their thing in the dish, I’ll transplant them into my borders, to build up my supply of late winter/early spring colour for next year.

If you’re looking for garden jobs for February you can similarly plant up Forget-Me-Nots. They’re so simple but beautiful.

Another bedding plant which is popular to plant now is Wallflowers. Though I prefer perennial wallflowers such as Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’.

In my experience it’s tremendous value. You’ll get masses of mauve flowers on tall spires, for absolutely months on end. And the butterflies love it!

4. Garden Jobs for February – Divide Perennials

It’s all too easy for some clump-forming herbaceous perennials to become too big. When they do, they start becoming a bit lacklustre, especially at the middle of the plant. So another of my February gardening jobs is to sort them out. You can do it now as they’re dormant.

Not only do you give them back their va va voom, but dividing them gives you extra plants for free! It’s the gardening equivalent of a win win.

The classic clump-forming plants include Primroses, Astrantias and Hostas. (Disclaimer…I must confess I do my hostas in September. You can see why here in my blog on how to divide hostas.)

But if you didn’t divide yours then, you can do it now. Essentially you dig up the whole clump with a fork so you don’t damage the roots. Tease the plants apart with your hands, making sure each small plant you create has both a healthy clump of root and a nice new shoot. I then pop the plants in the ground where I want them to grow, giving them a good water. Though if you’re not sure where you’ll want them you can put them in containers and grow them on a bit. Planting them out into the garden in autumn.

5. Sort Out Your Grasses

I love ornamental grasses. I think they add structure and interest to a winter garden and lovely fresh movement the rest of the year. Added to all this, they come in all sorts of heights and colours and they’re no trouble. Versatile and no nonsense – what’s not to like! That’s why I have oodles of them. See some of my favourite grasses.

While they don’t need a lot of care, if you have deciduous grasses which turn a golden, straw brown rather than necessarily lose their leaves, they need different treatment from those which are evergreen. My many evergreen varieties I just leave well alone. I run my hands very gently through them to ‘comb out’ the loose dead strands.

However, if you have flowering grasses, including  Miscanthus and Panicum, they are deciduous. The experts (including my lovely friend Kay) say you should cut them back. It’s one of the good garden jobs for late February or early March. To do this you simply cut all the old growth back to the base at the end of winter.

However, before you whip out the secateurs please take a bit of care. Remove each of last year’s stems individually. You do not want to cut off the new shoots that are emerging at the base! So I’d leave about 10cm of the old stems to avoid cutting through new growth.

The grasses which fall into the deciduous camp include:

• Calamagrostis
• Chasmanthium
• Deschampsia
• Hakonechloa
• Imperata cylindrica
• Miscanthus
• Panicum
• Pennisetum

To be honest, with a lot of my grasses, I’m not sure what they are. I’ve lost the nametags and I’ve a memory like a sieve. So if I’m unsure, and they are looking ok, I leave them for a good while, only removing the dead bits as and when they start looking scruffy!

6. Prune Clematis Groups 2 & 3

The final of my favourite garden jobs for February is pruning my clematis. Now, hold your horses! I don’t mean for you to go out and prune any old clematis. At this time of year only two groups of clematis should be getting any kind of chop – those that fall into groups 2 and 3.

Group 2

These are the large flowering clematis like the beautifully stripey Nelly Moser  (above) and handsome purple variety The President. They flower in May to June on short shoots which develop on the previous year’s growth. Some flower again in late summer on new growth.

This group needs pruning twice. The first time is as one of your garden jobs in February. The second time is later in the year, after the first flush of flowers in early Summer.

The February prune is very very light, from the top down. Do it stem by stem and do not go mad or you’ll lose loads of blooms! Simply remove the dead or weak bits. You want to trim back until you reach a pair of healthy buds. That’s it for February.

As a job for later on, to encourage a second wave of flowers you can prune this group a second time. Simply cutting back some of the stems after flowering, to the large buds or strong side shoots which are immediately below the blooms.

Group 3

This is the group of clematis I tend to grow. I’m a simple creature and my logic is, if I always go for varieties from the same group of clematis I can’t go too far wrong when it comes to pruning. That said, I succumbed to a few clematis bargains at a supermarket last year. They were going for £2 each. But I’ve no idea what group they are. So may find my bargains have made my pruning life more complicated!

Anyway, I digress, Group 3 clematis such as Clematis Bernadine and Clematis viticella ‘Etoile Violette’ flower on new growth made that season. So if you allow the old growth to grow up and up, year after year, without firm regular pruning you end up with no flowers at or below eye-level. All the beauty ends up happening way out of view.

The new growth is produced from the base each year. So group 3 clematis can be cut back hard. Even if the plants have lovely looking growth at the top, they get cut back to a good pair of viable healthy buds about 6 inches – 18 inches above soil level. It feels brutal but it’s important. Trust me.

If you’re nervous about how to do this checkout my how to prune clematis guide

You prune them in late winter or early spring. I admit it’s one of my favourite garden jobs for February.

So that’s it from me. Six lovely reasons to roll up your sleeves and get out in the garden.

Garden Jobs for February – what have I missed?

Are there any top jobs which I missed? What are you up to in your February garden? Do share.

Happy gardening x