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

[Stuckinstressville]

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

Ideas please!

Ooh, can you post a pic of your new table and chairs? I want to get something nicer than the Homebase cheapy we've had for a decade - I feel I can justify it!

I have eradicated bindweed from my otherwise organic garden. I coiled up any bit I could find into a sandwich bag. Sprayed round up into the bag. Then weighted it down so nothing could get in or out. Once plants were dead I binned the bags. Was everywhere, now gone.

Yes of course I'll post once I've sorted it out 😊

Can I ask a bindweed question? I've been fighting with bindweed in my garden since we moved in, and my biggest problem is that a lot of it is coming through from next door (both sides ) and has roots under paving slabs that I can't get to. I think that if I bag and weedkiller the plants on my side that it'll still come through if it's spreading outside my boundary so there's not really a huge amount of point. Does that sound right?

secret - I have a similar issue - my garden backs onto several others and one is a bit unkempt and there is a lot of bindweed. So it does grow through the hedge towards me. I think in those circumstances, it's a matter of accepting you're never going to get rid of it entirely and just keeping on top of it. If you just give up, your garden will be literally covered in it. So, even though it will be a constant battle, it's one worth fighting. Getting any roots on your side out will help.

Goodness I wrote a very clumsily worded post. Thanks shovetheholly I didn't mean I was going to abandon it completely, I'll carry on pulling/digging as I have been. I was just inspired by pp's comments about being able to eradicate it completely with weedkiller and wondered whether it was worth a try. But I suspect from what you've said that I could get rid of every scrap on my side and it would still be back. Blasted stuff!

Glyphosate is systemic, so it will kill it at the root. However, it will only kill the plants you catch, and other plants in the vicinity will soon spread to take their place. So it might be just as well to keep attacking it physically as you are doing already!

Nothing lawn is like a bog, bloody moss! We did prune the pear trees and the passion flower last weekend, tonnes to do when its dry.
Anyone know where we can a petrol feed tube for a hedgetrimmer? Ours broke in Autumn and we have a LOT of hedges to trim

Hmmm, what do you (want to) grow in the garden in the place where you have the bindweed problem?

Many weeds thrive on soil with lots of nitrogen. If you do not need this much nitrogen, then you could try to intentionally deplete the soil of it by planting something that uses up nitrogen and not replacing it.

And/ or you could plant the border with something that is stronger than the bindweed but not as invasive.

I'm doing much the same as the rest of you. Also pruning decidous shrubs - pysocarpus, viburnum, Nellia thibetica, buddleja, hydrangea, roses etc. And picking out some early chick weed < exciting>

Ground is far too wet to work on this week and it's bitterly cold with an east wind and flurries of sleet.

Spring is a lot later here, I can't wait for things work start growing but I suspect it will be another 6- 8 weeks

I'm waiting for a chain link fence to go in then I'll be planting 30m of barefoot hornbeam hedging. After that I'm planting an amelanchier and a crabapple (evereste).

Next job will be to prepare two new borders ready for filling with perennials. The aim is to achieve a Piet Oudolf style prairie with swathes of deschampsia and seslaria grass interspersed with beautiful flowers, verbena, monarda, agastache amongst others.

I have no gardening experience whatsoever but lots of ambition!

Bareroot hedging even 😀

Tittysprinkles, that sounds lovely. I am just going to google some of your plantings.

Maudoncemore here is a picture of the new table and chairs you asked for. They were £69.99 from Amazon

Paving is in dire need of jet wash

My cherry tomatoes and sweet peas have germinated and shot up in length - they've grown 3 inches over the course of 1-2 weeks! (The strawberries are a bit slower, and only about 1/4 of the strawberry seeds have germinated with tiny little leaves.) Had to take the lid off the propagators to give them room, and now my husband is complaining about the humidity and mould indoors.

So I've bought a cold frame Can't wait for it to arrive!

The baby perennials in our very cold conservatory are starting to look heartier these days, so I'm looking forward to popping them out in the cold frame too. Will plant out in April.

I've just ventured out and done some snipping off of dead bits of perennials.

Very excited to see the lupins I did from seed last year are getting going, andvlots of mystery bulbs I unearthed in a huge digging session seedm to be sprouting too. Plus lots of aliums I put in last autumn.

Is it too early to cut back potentillas? Mine have started sprouting.

We had a few hours of sun today. I have potted on chocolate cosmos, gypsophillia and some Aqueliga. I think it if too cold in the garden for them at the minute but hopefully next month they can go in.

I am wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa planning a straw bale bed. Periodically I go outside, peer at a particular place in the garden and mentally try and fit bales in it.

It all depends on if I can find any straw bales (no luck so far). And cope with the hysterical laughter enemating from my neighbours when they hear the plan and fall about with mirth.

It better bloody work. I want to quell the giggles by waggling trusses and trusses of amazing tomatoes at them

There's only one place better for gardening right now than on the sofa.

And that's on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket , with a glass of .

Please keep up updated on the straw bale bed.

Yesterday I burned a day's worth of wood, cleared the fruit tree bases and fed them, pruned the rose, planted a metric tonne of irises, weeded grass out of a large border, disturbed a dormant butterfly (he's ok), clipped perennials, assembled a cold frame and sowed carrot, leek, parsnip and sweetcorn seeds. Oh and planted a blackcurrant.

Today I have mostly been going 'ow'.

Wow! That's a lot of activity.

I have mostly been walking around, looking at what needs to be done and taking pics of the hellebores, which seem to be about to produce their best show for years.

I have realised I went a bit overboard with the special offers online with the garden companies 😳 Am trying to mark on a plan where I'm planting everything.

Would appreciate advice on sweet peas ... planted seeds but they're tall and straggly and thin already is this ok? Should I use tiny stakes of some sort or can they flop for now.

I've planted a pear tree and fed and mulched all my other trees. Moved a blackberry bush and am currently planning my allotment planting. My seed potatoes are chitting and I have some wooden troughs to paint. I pruned and tied-in my roses last week and need to feed and mulch them.

I still have to start off my tomatoes, chillies, nicotiana, sage and basil. The seeds are there. I just don't have the energy to sow them.

I've set up my cold frame in the garden! Very proud of myself. Managed to assemble it single-handedly whilst being 39 weeks pregnant (actually 2 days before my due date) and surprisingly it didn't tip me into labour. So then I dragged an old gazebo half-way across the front garden into a better spot, and that still didn't do anything.

The cold frame now houses tomato seedlings, strawberry seedlings, some baby perennials, and a pot of lavendar seedlings that has been languishing in the back of the house all winter.

Today I'm resting :)