February Gardening
- Now is a good time to bring begonias out of storage. They should be showing little pink “noses” of growth. That’s when they are read to pot up and put under lights or in a window.
- Don’t stall any more. Get your seed orders in if you haven’t already done so.
- Repot those indoor plants that need it. Your plants should begin to come out of winter dormancy with the wonderful sun of February.
- Cut back straggly plants to shape them and get them ready for spring growth.
- You can begin to water more this month. Wait, of course, until the soil is dryish before watering. Too much moisture is worse than too little.
- Continue planning your outside garden this month. As the weather warms and the sun is stronger, your gardening urges should surge. Use the added energy to finalize your gardening plans.
- Plant herbs indoors this month. Some herbs take a long time to germinate and will like the extra time.
- Refrain from sowing your outdoor plants! Eight to ten weeks before the last frost date is sufficient. Count back from the last frost date in your area to determine when you will start your seeds.
- Bring in branches of spring-flowering trees and shrubs and force them for early spring colour indoors.
Or do what I do – go to Florida and play golf
Jottings contains some articles I've written for the monthly newsletter of Barrie's Garden Club and other projects. I did the newsletter for 6 years and have quite a collection of "fillers." I also write just for me. What better place to share them than on my own site. I hope you enjoy them.
The morning is wiser than the evening. -- Russian Proverb
This is a collection of neat ideas and crazy tricks that I've collected from various sources. Many are amusing, and most are useful. We gardeners just love to learn neat little ways of doing our gardening jobs more effectively. My most popular talk is just that: "Hints and Tricks."
Most of the hints I've used myself or know someone who will vouch for them. All of them are fun to read and almost as much fun to do.
A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule. -- Michael Pollan
This is a miscellaneous section of all the odds and sods of information I've collected and would like to share. I've found most of the information in magazines and on the internet or in the many gardening books I can't resist buying!
You'll also find some of my favourite links on the Gardening Info page.
Newspapers: dead trees with information smeared on them. --Horizon, "Electronic Frontier"
My Garden
This section includes pictures of my small urban garden along with photos of the plants in that garden. This is a show-off section. Remember --gardeners don't take pictures of their gardens unless they look good! My garden is lovely, but I admit that it's not always as good as it looks in the pictures I choose to display!
I'm really more of a plant collector than a gardener and love the new or the unusual. Because the garden is small, I change plants often. Over the years, I've had quite a collection of the good, the bad and the ugly of garden plants.
The garden and digital cameras complement each other. Between my husband, my son-in-law and me, we've taken hundreds of pictures -- too many for a web page. But I've put up some that I like and hope that you enjoy them, too.
