|
Audio of the article was made possible by the CAST11 Prescott Podcast Network. Production of Talking Glass Media.
|
This week, Ken Lane, Mountain Gardener at Watters Garden Center in Prescott, shares February’s most important gardening tasks. Get your gardening organized and tips for beginners with our February garden checklist.
The garden in February can’t wait for spring. Until spring breaks, the short days in January get brighter every day. It is also the season of snow, but flowers bloom even in the snow. You can feel it: The plants take a slow, sweet shift toward spring.
February is perfect for preparing new flowerbeds and vegetable gardens. Turn manure and compost into a bed with Watters ‘Fruit & Veggie Food’, gypsum and bonemeal. These horticultural additives enhance yield and flavor. Check for bumps in the soil on the remaining flower beds and cover with mulch.
Finish pruning your landscape. After pruning, spray fruit trees and plants prone to disease and insect problems with Watters’ All-Season Dormancy Spray. Focus on disease-prone plants such as roses, peaches, plums, cherries, apples, and pears. Pruning is important when:
- fruit tree
- blueberry
- fig
- black and raspberry
- butterfly bush
- Tree of Purity
- Other summer-blooming shrubs
Come February, non-GMO seeds, organic vegetables and fruit trees fill the garden center. Onions, asparagus, rhubarb, potatoes, and garlic can be planted as soon as the ground thaws. It is essential to plant new fruit trees and fruit before the first flowers open and set leaves.
It’s time to sow winter vegetables Tubers of peas, radishes, carrots and potatoes that grow best in spring planting. If the lettuce did not overwinter, sow the spring crop later in the month. Winter weeds will also grow, so let’s jump.
In February, millet and dandelions are a problem. Apply Watters’ Weed & Grass Stopper to keep weeds at bay during the warmer days.
The animals are hungry this month. Notice the deer feeding on the tender new plant tips. Porcupines like to strip the trunks of fruit trees, elms, aspens and poplars.
Heathers and camellias that bloom in winter add color. Spring signals for pansies, violas, poppies and kale are just a few days away. Add them to your garden.
Bring a branch from fragrant winter bloomers. Blessed with many winter flowers. Bring some flowers indoors. Forsythia, apricot, witch hazel and wintersweet branches stimulate the senses. Pour lukewarm water into the bucket and put it in while collecting the cut ends. Change the vase water every few days.
important february yard work
• Free gardening classes at the nursery begin every Saturday at 9:30 am.
• Water the landscape twice this month
• Finish pruning trees, shrubs and perennials
• Spray trees, shrubs and roses with All Season Dormant Spray.
• Apply ‘Weed & Grass Stopper’ to the landscape
• Plant new fruit trees, roses and large evergreens by March.
• Start dividing perennials
February pests to control
• A skunk burrowing in the lawn means it has larvae.
The porcupine strips the bark from the lower part of the trunk
• Deer-eating branches fall from trees
• Beware of gnats on houseplants
February plants in full bloom
• heather and camellia with pink flowers
• Crocuses are starting to bloom
• Pansies, violas, poppies, kale
• Oregon Grape Bloom Yellow, Abelia, Indian Hawthorn, Arborvitae
Join us in the garden fun! Watters Garden Center hosts free garden classes every Saturday from 9:30-11am. Check out this spring’s schedule on WattersGardenCenter.com and look for the ‘Garden Classes’ link. You can also visit the garden center for the program.
From 9:30 a.m. on February 4th Preparing the soil for growing
From 9:30 a.m. on February 11 Fruit trees in the mountains and a big harvest
From 9:30 a.m. on February 18 gardening for beginners
From 9:30 a.m. on February 25 early blooming evergreen
February 2023 Garden Class Schedule
Until next week, we’ll be supporting gardeners’ growth at Watters Garden Center.
This article was written by Ken Lane. He can be found during his week at the Watters Garden Center on his 1815 W. Iron Springs Rd in Prescott. WattersGardenCenter.com or Top10Plants.com.
Get gardening tips from the Watters Garden Center in Signals A Z.com’s Mountain Gardener column.
