We have had some gorgeous days during the month of February. Often the warm sun has shone from a clear blue sky and the sweet smell of spring can be detected just over the horizon.
With the days lengthening very noticeably now, this gives gardeners that extra time required for all those spring jobs that will soon be demanding our attention. The extra light and warming sun is also stirring the birds into action. Many of the garden birds are now busy singing, proclaiming their new territories, territories that were probably formed during the cold winter months.
Robins, Collared Doves and Great Tits with their distinctive 'see-saw' call are all now aware that time is moving on and there is work to do. These calls of nature remind me that I too must stir and start preparing for the great surge in spring growth of a new season.
Wandering around the garden, it is very encouraging to seen so many green shoots poking through the still cold earth. The snowdrops are truly magnificent just now, a nice reward for all the earlier hard work of seasons past. Now of course is just the right time to buy and plant these early spring bulbs for next spring. Any decent gardening magazine will have adverts offering snowdrops 'in the green' as they are called. These are bulbs in active growth, in just the right condition to plant and adjust to their new home. For the investment of a few pounds and a little time in planting, you will have a dependable and expanding spring show for years to come.
February is traditionally the best time for me at least to start the rather tedious task of pruning all the late and mid-flowering clematis in my garden. This job is best done on a mild day when fingers can be manipulated with ease; there is nothing worse than trying to tie wayward shoots with frozen fingers!
Many of my clematis are already well into growth. The early spring flowering plants, such as the varieties of alpina and macropetala clematis, can be left unpruned for the most part as they flower on ripe woody growth from the season before. The showy late flowering group of clematis need a firm hand now though.
Pruning hard is the key to success. It might seen brutal removing yards of green, budding growth, but pruning down to around 40 to 30 cm is the sort of treatment they need to flower well. Having done this, you need to train all the shoots that are left to grow in a sort of fan arrangement, this should properly cover each plant's support with fresh new growth and hopefully lots of flowers.
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