Still being nagged by those garden writers.
I wasn’t going to do this again. I thought that there can’t be many things we’d be told to do in February that are different from January. And anyway, you’re going to be wandering around admiring the hellebores, no time for chores.
Some hellebores to enjoy
But that won’t satisfy the garden writers. They somehow manage to get in my face with their naggings. And so I feel I must help you.
I mean – when someone headlines ‘What to tidy and sort in your garden in February’ doesn’t it make you want to run away? Tidy???? Sort???
And people object when I describe gardening as outdoor housework.
So – it goes:
What you are supposed to do.
Powerwash your paths
This assumes a you have enough cash to have proper paths you can do this to. Our paths are mostly gravel, plus that which is locally called ‘dust’. This is the clay debris that comes with the gravel if it’s not cleaned at the quarry, and it has the virtue of setting quite hard, giving us a decent solid surface. (This is sometimes known as ‘hoggin’). But power washing it would blast it to bits. Might it get rid of the moss? Moss can make the paths slippery on the slopes. But it would get rid of everything else too. Do you blast your path?
I rather like moss…..
Turn your compost heap.
Well, if you absolutely insist a compost heap is necessary, you could still refrain from damaging your back by mucking it about like this. Actually I hope you have cut down all last year’s organic growth and left it where it belongs – which is wherever it was growing. In which case your compost heap will only have whatever organic rubbish you needed to get rid of last summer and it’ll be rather pathetic.
No lawn mowings in there, I hope – after all, they can handily get picked up and plonked on the nearest bit of empty soil. Or when summer has filled up every bit of bare soil, you can start dumping it on patches of weed. It hides them for a bit even if it doesn’t manage to smother them. And these days we are told not to mow, anyway! Huzzah!
A happy plant emerging from its own debris.
Apparently, I was told recently, compost heaps only became a thing in the 1930’s, when the infernal combustion engine had created a shortage of horse manure. That was in the days when people wanted their plants to grow tall and lush, so they could faff about staking them. These days we like to grow our plants hard and tough, neglected and self sustaining – having given up this exercise in relation to children. But still, removing the organic matter is not the best way of looking after most plants or soils, even if you do eventually try to bring it back and sprinkle it around.
Maybe you need a manure substitute if you are growing vegetables? Dunno. Some people like to grow monster marrows. But do you need to turn the compost heap? Well, everything rots down in time, even us. Just be a little more patient and leave it be.
Chit your potatoes now
This is my very favourite. You are supposed to spread the potatoes you’re going to plant out on to some vast platform in a single layer – in or on what, I can’t imagine. Then keep them in a cool, light place to sprout. It’s supposed to make them – yes – grow more quickly. That relentless urgency again.
Well, have you ever tried to stop potatoes from sprouting?? If you have a method, please let me know. If I turn my back on them for two minutes they are shoving their white tendrils out of the box and waving at me.
OK this is a rather elderly spud
When I grew potatoes, many years ago, I used to worry that the process of planting the things post chit would bash the carefully chitted sprouts off….
Consider planting a stretch of meadow. Pictorial Meadows mixes seed of natives with other colourful plants. (this is rather more advert than advice, don’t we think?)
This is a very dodgy one. Meadows in the UK are a form of permanent pasture, where grass is grown for hay and if you have a nice old one you may well have a multitude of other good things along with the grass. Ecologically invaluable, of great historic value and interest – this is possibly our UK version of prairie.
You don’t get it by digging grassland up and sowing seeds around the place – that is an imitation of an arable field with no useful crop but a lot of colourful weeds. It’s not a meadow and you must not ever dig up a meadow to sow annual weeds around the place.
But then none of us have a square inch left unplanted, so we are not about to start messing around like that. Hopefully.
Meadow – unploughed (or dug) for over 200 years. Not quite like a field full of annuals.
Well that’s an interesting one. It’s to let the flowers through, which presumably they were never designed to do without human help. They are weeny little things, not terribly worth bothering with perhaps. For years I haven’t bothered. I like the leaves best and they seem to just sort of keep growing and looking good. And in amongst them some rather weeny flowers pop up.
You’d chop off this lot so you could see some weeny flowers??
What TO do?
Well, who knows what you are all actually doing? Digging your way out to the shops through the snow? Enjoying the summer sunshine in Australia? Still trying desperately to keep warm by the fire? Looking at a desert or a maybe a sandy beach?
Wherever you are, you must be getting some bonkers instructions about what to do in your garden? What are they nagging you about??
We are getting recommendations to cut old hellebore foliage. Too lazy to cut the tattered previous season foliage to better see the flowers. But reports about hellebore virus does suggest this is prudent. Is this virus prevalent in UK?
I don’t truly know. I thought I had it and I wrote about it with a picture. https://veddw.com/general/hellebores-to-leave-or-no-leaves/
And was told that wasn’t it. So since then I’ve kind of ignored that possibility and mostly the leaves get left in my garden. And I don’t see complaints about it on social media either.
Anyway – this is what the RHS have to say about such things https://www.rhs.org.uk/disease/hellebore-leaf-spot. Does that help at all?
I guess it’s prevalent in the Uk too: https://www.rhs.org.uk/disease/hellebore-black-death
(I first heard if this from Brie Arthur, and later mentioned by Allan Armitage, so I guess we’ll be hearing more about it in the US)
Whooops – gave you the wrong link. Thanks for the right one.
Just yesterday, I heard David Culp say hellebores should be cut down in January (and never composted). May or may not be a good idea, but I think the hellebores look strange, blooming naked like that. But what do I know? Mr Culp says they look wonderful.
Your meadow is lovely.
Thank you ( I think so too. )
I find it very therapeutic to toss my compost pile. Don’t do it often. I dig into it like making a snow igloo and get the stuff way down. use it to make all my beds. Never have a problem using pure compost. It’s leaves grass clippings and kitchen scraps. never have problem with critters. I get the feeling your epimidiuns don’t turn brown in winter. Mine do.
Well, sounds better than paying to go to a gym! And no – my epimidiums looks glorious all winter (smug look)
Very funny. Thanks for all the great advice. I will let my
garden be more.
And, I think, that way it will be more….
I am glad it’s ok to have a compost heap….I was trained to make one in layers, no turning necessary.And now I live in an apartment and must have one in the backyard with wilderness beside it where i can put all the kitchen waste, I don’t see myself putting in the trash bag for removal to a land fill somewhere. I’m in the USA. Love your writing. Thanks
We are warned (in the UK) not to put kitchen waste on compost heaps for fear of rats. And indeed, in the days when I did, they nested in there and chewed their way through the wooden sides which were solidly supposed to keep them out.
I’m grateful that our council compost it all for us these days – phew!
Sounds as if you’re luckier in the States but you do have creatures there that I have never yet met.
There’s mixed wintry precipitation and 30+mph wind outside today so I am reading garden blogs with a blanket and a cat! This time of year I prep jugs for winter sowing, grow microgreens, put a few pots of forced bulbs on the windowsill and call it a day.
The only recommendations I’ve seen have been reasonable: plan out garden beds and succession planting, calculate seed starting dates, and mark your calendar.
No idea why my comment posted as a reply! Adding to the above about compost: kitchen scraps are ok here, extension mostly warns people about the proper carbon/nitrogen ratio and not to put meat or animal waste in the pile.
This is the time of year I stroll about looking for waking plants. It never ceases to please and amaze.
And thanks to you I now have a new word that will surely impress family and friends as I ‘faff’ around the garden.
Ah! Faffing is what gardens are for…
My epimediums turn brown in the winter, so yeah, I do trim them because I don’t like the brown, ratty leaves. Do I need to? I guess not.
I would give them a chop if they had the nerve to do that to me!
I’ve never turned a compost heap. It might take mine longer to break down, but after a year it’s perfect to use and my back thanks me.
I bet. (re back)
The snow melted, so I picked up six weeks of dog poop. But now it is snowing AGAIN. And blowing. So we cleaned up the garage a bit. Does that count?
With deep regret I have to confess that unless you give up the Thing Outside entirely, there will be stuff we have to do.
Lots of native seeds in my region require a cold period to germinate and I procrastinated in the autumn, so I’m currently cold-stratifying about 40 types of seeds in the fridge. A native plant supplier did suggest snow-seeding native seeds earlier this month (scattering seeds over snow) and that sounded like fun but I was concerned that the birds would think we were just being extra generous. I’m also reading library books about the spiritual aspects of gardening and nature. That’s what I think winter is for.
Sounds plausible until all those seeds germinate and need 40 types of attention….. Meanwhile, enjoy the reading. It’s why I love winter.
Another gem of good advice!
🙂
Great article as always, Anne! I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be doing all sorts of esoteric things to my lawn. Luckily I’m almost rid of all my lawn and even when I had more I skipped the aerating, pre-emergent application, re-seeding, etc.
Daffodils and forsythia are blooming here so it’s my favorite time of year to garden! I strongly dislike working hard when it’s above 75F which is most of our gardening year. So now is the time to finish planting, mulch, spread compost, move plants… then in July and August I will rest.
One time I read an article in a gardening magazine about how we should “leave the leaves” and not cut back perennials in the fall. Then IN THE SAME MAGAZINE they had the “what do do this month” section include cutting back perennials! C’mon, at least have your editor read both.
Consistency has no more place in garden media than common sense. I wish you joy both of your energetic activity now and you rest come July. I hope your garden will amply reward your efforts, even spreading compost.
Anne’s so mean. She cares nothing for those garden columnists who are always told by their editors to come up with “what to do” and “when to do it” pieces. Does she want them to be thrown onto to compost heap? And whilst she may have been languishing on her settee all month and occasionally venturing out to pick some snowdrops or admire the crocuses in the meadow, I’ve been working hard cutting down the herbaceous stuff in the borders, trapping moles, repairing or replacing tools, easing out desirable new geranium plants from paths, planting snowdrops and she’s never once told me to take it easy.
You are simply an activity addict and there’s no cure.
This is a fun one. Thank you for expressing my long-held opinion of February garden cleanup. It is time to plan (and plans can always change) and look for little plants coming up and thinking about clearing later.
And the meadow is beautiful. It is what too many folks think they can produce as a single-year project.
Thank you Margaret, you’re right. About the meadow too, but it’s a more subtle pleasure than the version produced by ploughing/digging up land and sewing annuals. We need to educate people’s palates?
The weather here has been crazy – 80 degrees F one day, ice and sleet a day or two later. They say Texas really does have four seasons, they just happen within one week! Since last weekend was one of the icy times (of course!), I spent a day giving my tropical plants a shower since dear hubby decided to sand the hardwood floor in the room which they were spending the winter.
This week, at least for a few days, we’re back to spring, and this is the time that I do venture outside to start cleaning up the perennials to see what lies beneath the sticks, twigs and old stems. I don’t sit well, so I’d much rather be outside on a sunny day cleaning up the gardens than inside cleaning the bathroom or scrubbing the floors.
Having a choice about which housework to do sounds good, if and when the weather will allow you! Sounds a bit like Wales there, actually – our solar panels were doing nicely then the rain turned our drive into a moat…..
I pretend to be a lizard if the sun is shining and I don’t have to be at work. Reclining lawn chair, upturned bucket for my coffee and Kindle (that I don’t read). Bask in the sunshine, listen to the sounds of the neighborhood, dream about what I might do in the garden later . . . maybe March.
Hmm.. I’m looking out of the window to see torrential rain making a moat round the house. And dreaming of – what did you say? – basking in the sun. O yes, one day…….
Lately we are being told “save the bees” and not to do anything until it’s consistently 50 degrees outside. That could bring us into May in Canada! Many people who don’t even garden like to fling this sentiment about on facebook. Sorry, but I need to get stuff done!
Makes a great excuse for those who want to put their feet up. But it’s hard to imagine what on earth we could be doing that the bees wouldn’t like!
In the UK they’ve just decided that honey bees are actually totally ok and now we must worry about how they are making life difficult for the bumble bees.