Tasks for February

Prune summer flowering clematis now– those big, showy stars of the season which take your breath away scrambling up a trellis or twining romantically around a climbing rose. Summer Flowering Clematis By now just a big tangle of brown stems remains of last year’s growth. Leave these in place and you’ll just get a lot of flowers at the top [...]

The Royal Horticultural Society needs your helpin its battle against the many pests and diseases which face gardeners. RHS Pest Survey The charity is asking gardeners to take part in a new study to identify the most important plant pests and diseases affecting their gardens. The information they provide will form the basis of a list of the most damaging [...]

Over 80 gardens around the country are opening for the National Gardens Scheme Snowdrop Festival this month, celebrating the beauty of our best-loved early spring flower. Snowdrop Festival Some of the gardens are a galanthophile’s paradise with hundreds of different varieties, while others mix snowdrops with other early spring beauties like hellebores, reticulate irises and winter aconites. At Devonshire Mill [...]

The nation’s favourite summer bedding plants have been namedfollowing a public vote at RHS Garden Wisley, in Surrey. The Uk's summer bedding plants Visitors were asked to vote for their favourites from a selection of 80 bedding plants across the garden during a period of ten weeks last summer. They chose the exotic-looking foliage plant Solenostemon ‘Campfire’ with its brilliant [...]

Londoners are to get a new ‘pocket park’ this spring– and it’ll be floating over water. London Garden The park at Merchant Square in Paddington is suspended over the Grand Union Canal in one of the busiest areas of central London. The 730 sq m space was designed by the Royal Horticultural Society’s Young Garden Designer of the Year, Tony [...]

Slowly, slowly, the season begins to get into gear as you set about tidying borders and sowing the first seeds ready for the coming year. Here’s your list of jobs in the garden this month: General tasks: Get new borders ready for planting during any sunny, dry spells, clearing away turf and weeds and adding lots of organic soil improver. [...]

The sap is rising – and it's time for early bird gardeners to get out and doing. There are veg seeds to sow, pruning to finish and a good tidy-up before the season ahead. Let’s get started! General tasks: Spread slow-release fertiliser like pelleted poultry manure under hedges and around shrubs and trees Top dress containers by scraping out the [...]

Sow a box of salad now to ease those itchy gardener’s fingers and get growing something, and also provide yourself with a super-early crop to kick-start your grow-your-own year. It's a bit soon to be sowing salad outdoors – but under cover in a greenhouse, polytunnel or just a bright windowsill lettuces and baby-leaf salad mixes germinate perfectly happily. One [...]