February gardening: end of winter
Prepare for a successful summer of food and flowers
February is one of the bleakest winter months but it is also fresh with signs of early growth. Trees and meadows are at their most bare and flat, dead stems of dormant garden perennials collapsed or ready to be clipped. Days are lengthening rapidly and we barely notice sunrise is shifting to before we wake.
Look closely and you’ll see the swell of buds on branches. Elderflower and honeysuckle already have unfurling leaves. Snowdrops are in their prime, joined by pink cyclamen and warm pulmonaria. Rhubarb leaves are testing the temperature with visible red stems ready to stretch. Daffodil buds are emerging from olive green leaves and the first dandelion flower is almost open.
Shoots of asters, helenium, rudbeckia, hylotelephium and more are forming dense clusters of shoots at ground level, ready for the off. And just like those plants, we the gardeners are in the wings doing our warm-ups, shuffling seed packets and ordering plants, ready for spring’s starting whistle.
