Gardening Tips for February 2025

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Nandina (Heavenly Bamboo) What To Do When they Get Leggy.

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• Bulbs and Tubers- Anemones and Ranunculus are sold as 4 inch plants now.  For the best selection, Buy spring planted, summer flowering bulbs, such as Begonia, Canna, Crocosmia, Dicentra spectabilis, Gladiolus, and Liatrus, now.  Choose bulbs that are heavy for their size and free of blemishes. If you're looking for a specific color or flower type buy dahlias now. If you want a large dahlia as soon as you plant it, buy Dahlia as a plant later in the year. You can also plant more than one tuber of Dahlia in one hole to get a bigger plant in its first year.
• Perennials-Hellebores, Pulmonaria, Aquilegia (Columbine), Dianthus (carnation), Veronica 'Georgia Blue'.
• Shrubs-Ribes, Arctostaphylos, Daphne, Pieris, Sarcococca, Camellia.
• Veggies- Artichoke, Onion sets, Fava Beasn, Rhubarb, Radish seeds, Potato tubers, Leeks.
• Seeds - California poppies, Larkspur, Nigella, Carrots and Beets (end of month).

Shopping - There are lots of plants that flower in February! Visit your local nursery to see the blooms of Ribes, Camellia, Hellebores, Forsythia, and Cyclamen. Also, smell what's fragrant, such as Yellow Primroses, Daphne, and the leaves of the ground cover, Yerba buena.  

• Watering - During dry spells in winter remember to give a short shower to winter annuals and other plants in the garden once or twice a week. The soil may still be damp but the leaves tend to get dehydrated from lack of rain.
• Pruning - Finish Pruning Roses and Fuchsias. Watch The Gardening Tutor's Rose Pruning Playlist on YouTube. For good pest management, remember to clean up all the old leaves in, under and around roses (not possible on huge roses). Buddleja davidii (Butterfly Bush) blooms on new growth. For the species (not the dwarf or variegated), prune down to 8 to 12 inches, removing approximately 1 in 5 of the older stems at ground level to encourage the plant to push new stems from the base of the plant. If your plant has never been pruned this way it may have a huge trunk now, prune down the thinner stems that are growing from the trunk section, leaving 6 or 8 inches of the healthy stems. Dwarf and Variegated Buddleja prefer a lighter pruning. Berberis can be pruned this month. Watch The Gardening Tutor video: How to Prune Berberis. Prune Spiraea japonica by at least half to encourage a full plant (can be pruned to 6 inches) and prune out dead wood. To learn how to get the most flowers from climbing roses: Watch The Gardening Tutor video: How to Prune a Climbing Rose. When you're ready to learn how to prune, Contact Mary to make your appointment.
• Pest Management - Camellias can suffer from petal blight, a reoccurring fungal disease. If all the blossoms turn brown before or soon after opening there's a good chance it is petal blight. On healthy Camellias, keeping spent and fallen blossoms cleaned up right away can help the plant stay healthy. It is difficult to cure petal blight once established. Winter veggies infestations of aphids can be managed with a strong spray of water to knock the aphids off, step up to insecticidal soap when water is not enough to manage the population. Before starting to remove the aphids, allow a week or so for lady beetles to come and eat them.
• Weeding - You may be seeing lots of online information about allowing all your weeds to keep growing but there are drawbacks to this, especially the pest insects that love to hang out in weeds. Manage weeds now to make spring planting more fun! Watch The Gardening Tutor video: Weeds How they Grow and How to Manage Them. When weeding around seedlings or root vegetables use snips to cut out the weeds below the soil surface instead of pulling them, which can pull up the veggies too.  
• Bulbs - This is the time of year to start shopping for summer flowering bulbs that are planted now - spring. Choose bulbs that are heavy for their size and blemish free.  
• Seeds-February is the time to start many flower and vegetable seeds indoors (greenhouse ideally) for planting out once our frost season has passed (mid to late April here in Zone 9). Read the seed packet, it will tell you how many weeks before last frost date to start seeds indoors (for better success start seeds in a greenhouse with bottom heat). Generally, the last frost date for Sonoma County CA is April 15th but we can get frost into the first week of May sometimes. 
• Pruning-Many shrubs and perennial plants are pruned in February to encourage good form and flowering. These include: Buddleja (Butterfly Bush), Berberis, Fuchsias, Erigeron, Nepeta, Veronica, Lemon Verbena and more. If your plants, such as Teucrium fruticans are pushing growth early, prune them now even though it is early to do so. Remember, spring flowering shrubs are not pruned now because you'll be pruning off flower buds that formed in the last year. Wait to Prune early flowering shrubs, such as Lilac, Forsythia, Flowering quince, Camellias, and Rhododendrons until just after they finish flowering. When you're ready to learn which plants to prune and how hard to prune them contact Mary for an appointment. Continue to deadhead winter color annuals, such as Iceland Poppies, Pansies, Bellis perennis, and Calendula.
• Pest Management-Continue to manage snails, slugs, earwigs, and cutworms with bait or hand picking (toss into a bucket of hot soapy water). Dormant spray plants such as roses before new growth starts to push to avoid damaging the new growth. Spray Peaches and Nectarines one last time before bud break. Also spray the soil under the plants to manage the overwintering pest insects and fungus. Gophers and moles have their place in nature but in the garden...not so much. Watch The Gardening Tutor Video: How to Set Gopher and Mole Traps. 
• Scale insects can be a real problem and nearly impossible to manage with any sprays. Scrape off mature scale insects when possible and toss into hot, soapy water. There is more to know about scale, contact Mary when you're ready to learn more. 
• Tools- Clean tools and lightly oil wooden handles- Keeping gardening tools clean  helps them last longer.  Clean tools before putting away. Before shopping for new tools this year, Watch The Gardening Tutor Tool Video: Overview for Buying and Using Gardening Tools.

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