Gardening jobs for February

• February is Snowdrop month, when many snowdrop gardens are open for us to admire and inspire. Unlike most other bulbs Snowdrops are best planted while in leaf. We have a selection of different varieties for you to choose from.
  Work in some compost to enrich the soil before planting and plant a little deeper than the soil at the top of the pot. Water them in if the soil is dry. If you have large overcrowded clumps in your garden already, wait until flowering has finished and then lift carefully with a fork. The clump can then be separated out and replanted at the same depth as they were growing.
  
  
• Trim winter flowering heathers as they finish flowering to prevent them becoming straggly, gardening shears are a useful tool for this job, you should trim back the plants to the base of the flower stalk.
  
  
• Birds will soon be looking for nesting sites so its best to get any large-scale pruning over with so that you can leave them undisturbed in the coming month. Deciduous hedges can be pruned back hard but conifers are best left until the summer. Late flowering shrubs such as Buddleja can be pruned this month, these shrubs flower best on growth that they will make this year. You can be really ruthless cutting them back really hard and you will be rewarded with a better show of flowers this coming season.
  
  
• Birds need time to get to know any new bird boxes before they will choose them for their new home, So be sure to clean and check old boxes and if you need a new one, our large range is bound to suit the most fastidious bird!
  
  
• The digging of the vegetable bed should be finished this month, if you grow brassicas it's a good idea to check the pH of your soil with a soil testing kit, as brassicas all like alkaline soil. Lime should be applied to the soil at least two months before planting.
  
  
• We have a good range of Raspberry canes which should be planted this month, always plant to the depth that they were planted at in the nursery, this can be easily seen by the darker mark on the main stem. Remember that there are different times for pruning summer & autumn fruiting Raspberries or you may lose this year's crop.
  It is only the Autumn varieties that need pruning now, these should pruned to the ground. They will fruit on canes (long stems) that grow this summer, whilst the summer fruiting varieties will fruit on the new canes that were produced last summer which should just have the tips pruned before tying in, the old canes having been pruned out after they fruited last summer.