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read moreRobert’s Garden Tips
Tips and advice from our resident expert
Colin, Gillian and staff would like to welcome you to Nurseries Direct.
Ayrshire’s largest independent garden centre. We pride ourselves in offering quality plants, garden essentials, furniture and gifts at competitive prices.
Grow your own...February
- Winter digging; if you have not already dug over your vegetable beds, now is your chance to do so - weather permitting. Apply lime and organic matter to the surface and dig in as you go. Try and dig down to a full spades depth, turning the soil as you go.
- Sow extra early crops such as radish, carrot and turnip. Sow into well prepared soil and protect with plastic or polythene cloche.
- If you have a greenhouse, early potatoes can be planted into containers using fresh multi-purpose compost - weather permitting. This will produce a crop of early potatoes in May. Remember to keep the container well watered.
- This is a good time to plant fruit trees and bushes. Planting at this time will give them time to establish more quickly and produce more fruit. Remember to prepare the soil by mixing compost and fertiliser, this will give your plants a good start.
- Winter prune apple and pear trees and bushes, this is best done before the leaf buds burst in mid march.
- Prepare the greenhouse for the coming season by fumigating with sulphur candles and clean down with Jeyes Fluid. Don't forget to clean staging seed trays, pots etc. The more time you put in to preparation, the greater the rewards at harvest time.
- Lettuce, leeks, brassicas and onions can be sown in pots or trays in the greenhouse or cold frame sow the seed thinly in a good compost. When the seedlings are large enough, prick them out into trays or individual pots and grow on until they are large enough to plan out in the vegetable bed - when the weather permits.
In the garden...February
- Large flowering Clematis can be pruned this month -those being the ones that flower fom June onwards. Cut back untidy growth to a fat pair of buds. Small flowering varieties -such as Montana- do not need pruning until they get out of hand but can also be tidied up when required.
- Tidy borders and beds, fallen leaves can be gathered up and put into black bin bags and left to rot down into leaf mould which is good for digging in to soil, therefore improving the soils texture.
- Weather permitting, in early Spring, bulbs in pots and polyanthus can be planted out to provide added splashes of colour and interest to the garden.
- Now is a good time to move any trees or shrubs in the garden that may be in the wrong place or are not growing in their current position. Take as large a root ball as possible and prepare the new planting site by digging compost and bonemeal in to the bottom of the hole. fill with soil and compost mix and heel in well as you are re-planting a reduced air pocket. Water in well and keep well watered throughout the growing season.
- Tidy up and deadhead Winter Pansies and Violas. In tubs and hanging baskets, top dress and water plants that are in permanent containers.
- Plug and tot plants will be available this month, now is the time to start planning your summer bedding displays.
- New season containerised roses are now available in store and are ready for planting-weather permitting. Dig out a good size planting hole -approx. twice the size of the pot the rose is in. Mix the excavated soil with compost and a handfull of bonemeal. Remove the rose from the pot and plant to the same depth as it was in the pot. Fill around the hole with the soil and compost mix, firming well as you plant.
Plants to enjoy...February
- Salix cuprea Kilmarnock (Kilmanock Willow)
Nice small weeping tree suitable for most gardens, particuarly interesting at this time of year as catkin buds are starting to burst open to produce 3cm. Long silver catkins covered with yellow anthers.
- Sarcococca confusa (Christmas box)
An evergreen with dark glossy green leaves carrying clusters of white fragrant flowers Febuary/March followed by black glossy fruits.
- Erica x darleyensis Darly Dale (Heath)
Pink shell like flowers January to March good for ground cover and winter colour new growth is tipped cream in Spring.
- Daphne mezereum Rubra.
Upright deciduous shrub having purplish pink flowers late winter to early spring borne before leaves emerge followed by spherical red fruits
- Mahonia x media Charity
Erect shrub with pinnate leaves bears bright yellow racemes in clusters up to 45cm long from late autumn to late winter.
- Garrya elliptica (Silk-tassel bush)
Upright evergreen shrub with ovate leaves which bears pendent grey-green catkins 15-20 cm long from mid winter to early spring.
- Early flowering spring bulbs
After a long winter, they herald the start of a new growing season. Whichever position they are set no garden can be complete without their early colour, lasting from January until June, take your pick from Snowdrops, Crocus, Narcissus, Tulips, to name but a few, no matter if in a border, rockery or container - no garden can be without these garden stars.
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