Make room for snowdrops to brighten up your plot
February’s flowers have a subtle beauty, which always makes them worthy of closer inspection on a sunny day. The nodding blooms of Helleborus x hybridus span a range of muted colours, from white, yellow and pink, to deepest burgundy and slate grey. Lift the flowers to reveal the central boss of pale stamens and sometimes patterns of dark spots – like opening a tailored jacket to find a beautiful silk lining. If you have them in the garden, cut back the foliage to ground level to display the elegant flowering stems and, if you don’t, visit a nursery this month to choose from plants in bloom.
There is also fascinating diversity among different species and cultivars of the humble snowdrop. The classic woodland snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, makes a great garden plant, but why stop there when you can add one of its double-flowered cultivars, larger-flowered G. elwesii, early-flowering G. ‘Atkinsii’ and many more. Snowdrops, along with aconites, are best planted ‘in the green’, while in growth, so look out for plants to buy this month and next, or split clumps to swap with friends.
Take care to avoid standing on other emerging bulbs as you weed and start to cut back the remaining dead foliage and flower heads from herbaceous plants in your borders. Prune last year’s growth back to two or three buds on wisteria, to keep plants tidy and help prevent flowers being obscured by leaves. Most deciduous trees, except cherries and plums, can still be pruned this month, along with any winter-flowering shrubs that have finished blooming.
Buy seed potatoes and, towards the end of the month, prepare early varieties for planting by ‘chitting’ them. Stand them in an egg box or seed tray so that the end of each tuber with the most eyes points upwards, then leave them on a windowsill in a cool, frost-free room until mid to late March to form short, dark shoots.
For the best chance of a successful crop of chillies, peppers or aubergines, sow these heat-loving crops in a heated propagator this month to give them the long season
Sow chillies, peppers or aubergines in a heated propagator
they need to ripen. Hardy varieties of broad beans can be sown now too, either outside, or in pots in the greenhouse if the soil is frozen or sodden. I’m afraid my autumn-sown plants made a gourmet winter snack for the pigeons, so I will be sowing more, and also planting some extra rows of garlic. Catch up with these little jobs now while things are quiet and the garden will be in order before spring growth begins. ■