We’re back with the latest instalment of the STIHL garden guide! This month, Jane Moore showcases jobs to do in your garden in February.

The first job is to get on with the pruning. There is a lot to do this month, while the plants are still dormant, but the buds are beginning to swell a little. That makes it easier to spot where to make your cuts. Prune anything from wall-trained roses to apple and pear trees, including the ones that are trained against a wall or fence.

Wisteria needs regular pruning to keep its growth and overall size under control, but it also improves the flowering display. Cut back any of the summer growth to two or three buds, and you may need to remove a few flowering spurs if they’re coming out too far away from the wall.

🔶 Pruning Roses
Pruning wall-trained roses is more difficult, especially if you’ve neglected them a bit. But if you stick to the 3 Ds then that’s a good start. Remove any obvious dead, diseased or damaged wood to begin with.

After that, you’re aiming for a nice fan shape, with strong stems that are tied in nicely to create an arching framework. Cut back the twiggy growth hard, to stubby little laterals. Finally, finish off with a nice feed and mulch or compost of manure.

🔶 Pruning Clematis
Clematis is easy to prune as long as you know what time of year your plant flowers. If you’re not sure, then keep any pruning light and take note of what time of year your Clematis flowers.

The first group are the spring bloomers like Clematis Montana and these don’t need much pruning. Wait until the last flowers have faded, in late spring or early summer, and then tidy them up by cutting back to a healthy set of buds.

Summer flowering Clematis need pruning now, and they fall into two groups – the ones that flower early in June and then again later in summer, and the ones that flower late in the season only once. These early bloomers just need a light prune, removing any dead or weak growth.

The second group flower later in the summer, after mid-June, and these include the small flowered Clematis Viticella varieties. These flower on new shoots that are produced in this growing season, so last year’s growth should be removed in late February or early March.

🔶 Preparing Your Kitchen Garden
February is the perfect time to get started on the kitchen garden. It’s still a bit early for sowing direct but there are plenty of other jobs to do like getting your beds ready. As long as the ground isn’t frozen, you can cultivate beds and start to warm up the soil, by covering it with fleece, polythene or cloches, in preparation for sowing in the coming months.

If you’re feeling active, this is a great time to build a raised bed now. The great thing about a raised bed is that it allows you to make an early start in the garden because the soil warms up faster and raised beds drain quickly too.

When it comes to planting, you can start chitting early potato varieties now. Stand them on end in a module tray or egg box and place them in a bright, cool, frost-free place.
🔶 More tips on chitting potatoes here: [ Ссылка ]

🔶 Planting a Bee & Butterfly Border
Sometimes you just don’t get the weather for building or gardening outdoors this month, so it’s a good time for planning any changes you might want to make to your garden in the coming year. Adding a bee and butterfly border to your garden is a great way to attract wildlife and help support our pollinators.

The key thing with bee and butterfly-friendly plants is to have a long season of flowering, providing nectar and pollen galore for months. Some will go on flowering all season long – plants such as Geranium Rozanne start flowering in June and often flower into November. Wide, open flowers are easy for bees to spot and land on.

Verbena bonariensis starts later in the summer but keeps on producing masses of these little flowers. They might be small, but these tubular flowers are a great favourite of butterflies, which use their long proboscis to reach the nectar at the base of the tube.

Larger tubular flowers like Penstemon and Foxglove have a little pathway highlighted for bees to land on and creep up the flower, getting dusted with pollen as they go and then transferring that to the next flower they land on.

We hope you’ve enjoyed these gardening tips and you’re all fired up to get out in your garden this February. Don’t forget to subscribe to the STIHL GB YouTube channel for more ideas, hints and tips to help you make the most of your garden.

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