'Garden Column - February 2008'

Time to start scalping!

With signs of life in the garden starting to show its time to go into the shed or garage blow the dust off your tools and bravely venture out into the wide unknown.
This week is a good sign to start the hard pruning around the garden. Buddleja (Butterfly Bush), Summer flowering forms of Spiraea (Japanese Meadowsweet), Cornus (Dogwood) and Roses are just some of the victims which will require a drastic prune.
A lot of people when it comes to pruning have the tendencies to prune too little off and their prize garden quickly over grows and they then rip out perfectly healthy plants due to their own cultural mistakes.
Always prune away from the bud about 5mm above and at a forty-five degree angle. When pruning always check your garden books or visit us at the garden centre if you are not sure.
Buddleja and Cornus and other late summer flowering deciduous shrubs should be trimmed down to around 30cm. This will encourage plenty of new growth and flower.
Spiraea can be trimmed as drastically as 10cm in height.
Roses the programme gets a little more complicated but the one thing to remember is that a majority of roses flower on new growth so the more new growth you entice the more flower you will get.

Tread the boards.

If you are working on your borders removing weeds, tidying plants and digging over new areas then you�ll need to tread the boards. No I don�t mean join our local drama group, whilst working in the garden use boards along the edges of your lawn.
In February the edges of your lawn can be sodden from wet weather and if trodden on too much can cause irreparable damage.
Use boards along the edge to deter future expense.

Clear and feed your herbaceous borders.

Areas of herbaceous plants also now need your attention.
Start clearing by removing all the dead foliage trimming back down to where any visible growth is sprouting, don�t worry if there is no sign of growth or buds as they may be below ground level.
When all of the previous year�s growth has been removed, top-dress with a general purpose fertiliser such as Vitax Q4 or Vitax Blood, Fish & Bone.
Lightly hoe in the fertiliser and apply a mulch of cocoa shell or bark to help suppress weed growth.
Some plants may be getting over crowded. If they are, now is the time to lift and split the clumps up and increase your stocks. Replant some of the split clump into the existing position if required. Remember to pot some of the clump into containers and if the replanted clump fails then you�ll still have some to replace it.

Start chitting Spuds.

Seed potatoes should be purchased and you should start chitting them as soon as possible.
Your seed spuds whether first early, second early or main crop should be placed into trays in a well-lit place out of direct sunlight to allow the eyes to shoot giving your crop an early start once planted out from the end of next month.
The ideal way to chit is to acquire a large cardboard egg tray or in a tray containing 25mm of dry horticultural sand or Irish Moss Peat.