10 Tips for Caring for your Landscape in February
February is as much about what not to do in the garden as what to do.
- Do NOT walk on wet garden beds or lawns; this causes compacted soils in which plants and grass have difficulty growing.
- Likewise, do NOT plant, weed, or turn over any saturated garden soil.
- Do NOT add mulch to your bulb beds. This will warm up the soil prematurely and force growth before the bulbs are naturally ready. If the bulbs grow too fast and create buds too early, the chances of the opening blooms freezing before they can fully open is high. Snow-loving bulbs like snowdrops and aconites don’t mind the intense cold so no worries there!
- IF the ground ever dries out (!) and the temperature is above freezing, hand water your evergreens deeply to reach their roots.
- IF your bulb beds have many inches of bulb, consider thinning out that mulch to promote the natural timing of bulb blooms per above.
- DO winter prune selected dormant trees and shrubs; see last week’s posting for more details.
- DO prune apple and pear trees, grapes, and bramble fruits now.
- DO control lawn weeds with chemical preventives.
- DO apply dormant oil sprays to trees and shrubs to prevent many future pests and diseases.
- DO examine your plants for early-season pests such as bagworms, cedar apple rust, and black knot. Prune them out. (Images courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden.)
We will be starting all garden care the first week of March so please contact us if you want us to do this for you, either once or ongoing.
