Garden Centre

Friday, February 6, 2009

February - perennial plants

February is the time to get your perennials sorted! Where there isn’t a threat of snow or frost (which is absolutely nowhere in the UK, right now) you can be planting vegetables such as artichokes, asparagus and rhubarb, which live for several or many years in the same place. If, on the other hand, you’re expecting snow or heavy frost (like everywhere in the UK, right now) you can keep these plants in a light but frost free place for at least a further 3-4 weeks, if they are not bare-rooted. If they are bare-rooted, it’s probably better to get them into some compost in a tub now, so that the roots, which will want to start swelling as day-length increases, aren’t starved of nourishment.

If you have summer-flowering perennials that you have brought indoors for winter, and they start to grow now, find a cooler spot in which to store them or they won't flower well at the correct time.

If, like me, you’re fed up with the weather and want to be planting, then there are things you can do.

• You can buy a greenhouse. Mine is filling up worryingly fast, given that I can’t get anything into the ground.
• You can build raised beds – because they are better insulated and because you can control their soil content, filling them with warming compost, for example, and because you can cover them with horticultural fleece, you can plant in them earlier than in the cold bare ground.

But mainly this February seems to be about thawing the pond and preserving my patience – and I’m not good at either!

Labels: artichokes, asparagus, greenhouse, raised beds, rhubarb, tender perennials

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:40 AM

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