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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

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Original poster

SO what are you all doing at this time of year in gardens?

74 replies

Stuckinstressville · 04/02/2017 15:11

I want to really improve my
Garden this year !
What are your gardening chores for Feb?
Bulbs?
Pruning?
Mulching?

Ideas please!

OP posts:

Kleptronic · 07/02/2017 08:47

I'm building a cold frame, chitting first earlies and making a raised bed. I've had my weeping silver birch, berberis hedge, eucalyptus tree and malus scalped by tree surgeons (silver birch is as high as the house, or was).
I need to prune roses and perennials, start seeds off, plant a bagful of irises from my Dad, and go round to my dearly departed Grandad's house and lift six rose bushes.

shovetheholly · 07/02/2017 08:51

You could leave it for a year, but I don't think it's totally necessary. I dig the beds over really carefully and pull out all of the awful, nasty white spindly roots I can find. Then I watch over it with a hawk-like eye and POUNCE on any bit that dares to rear its head and get the roots of that out too. I think of it as the gardening equivalent of battling Medusa. Once you start hitting it where it hurts - under the ground, not above it- you start to win quite quickly.

whoknows is right - it's a sneaky bugger. I have all my paths weed sheeted so it can only come in from the sides, which I then patrol with CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Turn your back for a week, and it's across.

If you're really desperate, you could glyphosate it, but it's really last resort as it has impacts on your soil and you. And it's not great for the environment.

Palomb · 07/02/2017 15:15

I killed bindweed in my garden by soaking fitted wool balls in glyphosate and wrapping the bindweek round it and tying it in place with a light coloured nappy sack. I left it until the end of the year then cleared it as normal and it never came back. Obvs not great if you're an organic gardener but needs must sometimes.

bookbook · 07/02/2017 18:24

I tend to just keep digging out as much bind weed as possible, and keep on top of it - like whoKnows and shove
but - if its driving you to distraction, I did get a tip from a very old market gardener. Get the spray type of glyphosate . Cut of the end off a large lemonade/water bottle, and pull the strands and leaves through into the bottle through the small cap end. block it off as best as possible, then spray all the leaves inside the bottle, and leave for a day. That hopefully only allows the spray onto the bindweed leaves, and goes down to the roots ( fingers crossed!)

doggle · 07/02/2017 18:27

I am not in my garden at this time of year. It's under two feet of snow and I keep losing the dog.

WellTidy · 07/02/2017 18:45

I'm a complete novice gardener, so I'm learning at the moment through our newly found gardener. She comes every week for 3.5 hours as we've seriously let the garden go and it is out of control.

These last few weeks, she has been cutting away ivy from our fences, putting weedkiller down (we gave a massive amount of green alkanet in our garde, its very invasive, despite me pulling it every time I saw even a leaf last spring), weeding, clearing our paths and moving skins vergreens when they've become too big for where they were.

I'm looking forward to buying some new evergreens and planting. I've also seen some heucheras which will be great in our low beds. I'm really enjoying learning more.

JT05 · 08/02/2017 13:27

Digging over my newly created flower bed in the recently acquired garden. Although the garden is neat it is empty apart from a long lawn, pond, leylandi hedge on one side, a large courtyard, a pear tree and a vine.
I am so excited as this is my first year to create what I want!
I've loads of plants waiting in pots to plant when the bed's ready.

Finola1step · 08/02/2017 13:32

I too am still dealing with blasted leaves. And are from oak trees that are not even mine. They just seem to be drawn to my garden like moths to a flame.

AstrantiaMajor · 08/02/2017 14:05

We have just put 30 plants in the new garden. The final 2 trees arrived yesterday that completes the tall stuff. I found an absolute bargain of baby grasses and tiny conifers in Wilkinsons, they will go in next week.

I was a bit worried about the drainage in the new beds, so I dug out a lot of soil that the landscapers put in. and replaced it. That was about 3 weeks ago. Pleased to say that it has worked, as despite the horrendous rain it was easy to plant and not too wet. I have advertised the 3 big bags of top soil that I dug out on Freely Wheely and a local man is going to collect it.

ElleDubloo · 08/02/2017 15:17

I've got a few projects going on:

Sewed a few seeds on the spare room windowsill:

Alpine strawberries
Tumbling Toms
Sweet peas

Started trying to propagate a succulent.

Planning to dig a new border in the front garden lawn, ready to plant out some perennials in April (which I've been growing indoors from plug plants over winter).

Keeping a watchful eye on my single strawberry plant that hasn't been dug up and poo'd on by foxes. Getting my OH to wee in the watering can as I've heard that can put off foxes.

Thinking of laying gravel over a large area in the front garden. It was previously filled with weeds when we bought the house. Over winter I've had old carpets covering it, so hopefully it'll be ready for gravel now.

AstrantiaMajor · 08/02/2017 18:07

I often laugh at stuff I read on MN, but Elle's post is the first time on the gardening threads.

ElleDubloo · 09/02/2017 07:19

Why?

shovetheholly · 09/02/2017 08:34

Weeing in the watering can . You're doing better than me, I can't get my DH to wee on my compost heap. Grounds for divorce??

Swannykazoo · 09/02/2017 08:44

Joing thread vicariously. Currently out of my lovely house with a garden I;ve worked hard on - was total overgrown wreck when we moved in. (Arsehole STBXH.)
Excited about finding somewhere new with a new garden though......
Need to rescue some of my old plants too

AstrantiaMajor · 09/02/2017 08:46

Yes wee In the watering can. It just was such a perfect image I had in my head of his standing in the middle of the garden performing for the neighbours.

ElleDubloo · 09/02/2017 08:52

Weeing in the watering can in the privacy of the bathroom, of course! Apparently it's the male hormones that offend the foxes, and female wee doesn't have the same effect.

AstrantiaMajor · 09/02/2017 09:03

I never knew that.

ElleDubloo · 09/02/2017 09:18

Me neither until recently! It was on the last episode of GQT.

shovetheholly · 09/02/2017 13:57

swanny - sorry you're having a rough time, that sounds like a real wrench. I hope you can rescue your beloved plants, and move them to a garden that will be even better. Do hang around - there are several members of the Mumsnet Gardening crew who have moved or had major gardening work done recently and who will therefore have recent first hand knowledge of what you might be going through! (Check out pithivier's lovely new garden on her thread).

And on the subject of wee - I have actually pleaded with DH to wee in the watering can, while shaking it in what I had hoped was a persuasive manner. I even volunteered to hold it. He says he can't go when there is so much pressure.

AstrantiaMajor · 09/02/2017 15:44

Thank you for the publicity ShovetheHolly. I now have a new user name from Pithivier to AstrantiaMajor, as this is now my favourite plant.

shovetheholly · 09/02/2017 16:05

Oohhhhhh, how have I not picked that up??! I'm so sorry Astrantia!

Honestly, I sometimes think my head is not on this planet!!

VestalVirgin · 09/02/2017 16:20

If you're really desperate, you could glyphosate it, but it's really last resort as it has impacts on your soil and you. And it's not great for the environment.

Oh, nature can cope. There's already glyphosate resistant weeds.
Which amuses me to no end - Monsanto makes a huge effort to create resistant plants, and then the weeds just go and naturally evolve resistance in what is likely a much shorter time than it took to genetically engineer it.

... that said, I am very aware that I will not evolve glyphosate resistance all on my own, so would never put it anywhere near something I intend to eat.

I planted some obscure Andean crop, cannot remember the English name, I think it might be a nasturtium tuberosum or something?

Hope the -13°C won't kill it.

(I bought it for consumption as vegetable and it wasn't getting any better in the fridge, so I figured I'd try and plant it)

shovetheholly · 09/02/2017 16:35

It's not just plants that are affected, though - it's earthworms, aquatic life, amphibians, you name it. It may upset the balance of microbes in soil (the jury is out on this). Plus, it's a probable carcinogen for humans too.

If you buy bread that isn't organic, the chances are you may be consuming a crop that's been broadcast sprayed with it. Some farmers apply it to entire fields of wheat to dry them artificially. It's enough to put you off your dinner!

www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/press_releases/foee_5_environmental_impacts_glyphosate.pdf

www.soilassociation.org/media/7202/glyphosate-and-soil-health-full-report.pdf

AstrantiaMajor · 09/02/2017 17:44

I have updated my thread.

LunaNightSky · 09/02/2017 17:58

I planted bulbs last week, bought a lot of succulents, bought two large mosses which look great in the two silver pots I have.

I've put new compost into my existing pots and feed. I washed all of the plant pots down as they hard dirt and green slime from the rain.

I've ordered new table and chairs in a shabby chic style as it's a courtyard garden.

Need to power wash the stones and I might nip back to the garden centre to buy more succulents and moss to make a nice centre piece for the table.

So glad spring is on it's way, being in the garden really helps my mood 😄

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