February in the Garden
As the days lengthen and warm spells become more common, thoughts turn toward the upcoming garden season. There are still few tasks in the garden, so our time is still best spent planning for the year ahead so things will go smoothly for the rest of the year.
Design
- Envision your garden with paper and pencil. This can be as simple as planting a container to display on your patio or deck, or more complex, involving a variety of beds and borders of the addition of features, such as raised beds and fences.
- Use graph paper, plot out your existing yard and house. Make copies of this and use it as your base map to play with ideas.
- Put in trees, shrubs, and other solid structural elements, and flowerbeds, if you are not sure you can add them later.
- Create a master plan with sub-plans so you can keep track of the changes you’d like to make each year.
- If you have a vegetable garden, make a separate plan of this garden so you can plan and keep track of crop rotations.
- If you are local and looking for help with your garden design, contact me about my design services and book an initial consultation at no charge.
Indoor plants
- Continue to check for insect pests on your houseplants.
- As indoor plants start to show signs of new growth, increase watering and apply a weak fertilizer (¼ strength) only after they begin to grow.
Outside
- Cut branches of flowering shrubs, such as forsythia, crab apple, willows, and cherry, to bring indoors. Place them in a bright location in a vase of water, they will begin to flower, giving you a taste of spring in winter.
- Check shrubs and trees for storm-damaged branches and remove them using proper pruning techniques.
- If you are local and wanting help with small tree and shrub pruning, contact me about my garden care services.
Inside
- Finish ordering plants and seeds and other garden supplies you need from catalogs.
- Check to see if any of the tubers or bulbs you are storing indoors have started to sprout. Pot them up and keep them in a bright location once they do.
If you are starting from seeds
- Start seeds for perennials that take longer, for those that take around 12 weeks, like onion chives and perennial flowers. Start seeds for annuals that take longer or bloom in spring, like onions and leeks, pansies and petunias. Here’s a short guide for which seeds to start when in Michigan or use this free online seed starting calculator.
- Check which of your seeds need cold stratification, and some ways to stratify them, or try winter sowing! If you are local and trying winter sowing, check out MSU surplus to get free plastic gallon jugs.
- Clean empty planters, containers and seed trays to get them ready for spring planting.
- Thoroughly clean containers with simple cleaners you probably already have in your home before using them to prevent pests and seedlings from dying from dampening-off.
- To reduce plastic use and waste, I highly recommend a soil blocking toil to compress your seed starting mix into a firm black that holds its shape just as if it were in a pot, you can watch a short video here to see the process. Even better you can buy one from a local, small business! Or, you can use peat/biodegradable pots and other non-plastic potting options, check out this short video for some ideas.
- Make your own seed starting soil mix with this recipe. Or, some seed starting soils that you can purchase that I would recommend are Happy Frog Potting Soil or Coast of Maine.
- Moisten (but not too wet so that it’s soggy) the soil mix first, firm the soil in the containers but don’t pack down too tightly.
- You can cover the pots/trays with plastic bags or clear tray covers to create mini-greenhouse like environment that keeps the seedbed humid. After seeds have been planted, and once seedlings emerge, remove the plastic bags or tray covers and moisten the soil with a hand-held spray mister when the soil begins to dry out. Heavier watering methods can wash the seeds off or deeper into the soil.
- Mix very tiny seeds with very fine sand before planting to spread them out more evenly.
- For ease, plant only one type of seed in each container, some seeds will germinate before others, and it can be difficult to keep both seeds happy in the same container. To indicate what is planted in the trays, I use masking tape and permanent marker on the trays or pots.
- Most seeds do not need bright, direct light to germinate and can be kept in an out of the way place until they begin to sprout. Once sprouted, keep seedlings in the brightest location, available to reduce stretching toward the light, which can cause them to grow long, leggy stems that will be weak and floppy. Consider buying a fluorescent or other grow light to provide extra illumination for them.
- Don’t fertilize young seedlings. Wait until the first seed leaves (first true leaves to appear) have begun to shrivel, then apply a weak fertilizer once a week.
- Some people will buy a heating coil or heating pad to help with seed germination, but it is not required.