February in Your Garden - Page 6

That second one is lovely Bunnys!  Is it a named variety?  I like the way they are breeding ones now which have more upward-facing blooms - getting too old to keep bending down just to turn a flower over to enjoy it, beautiful as they are.  That sort of effort is getting more reserved to planting and dealing with the weeds!

Yes! Verdun, you do get a reward; the accolades of your peers - what more could anyone want

It has been freezing here in Crawley and I dont feel any inclination to go and do anything in the garden but have a quick nosey round...  My onions are growing  slowly, my beans were eaten alive so dont think there will be any early beans now, but a couple of sweetpeas in pots that got left out are still growing like mad despite the snow and frost (dont understand that), my chives and parsely survived not sure what to do with my clematis tho... I had a new one that was doing well then it developed 3 buds over the winter which didnt flower, should I trim my clematis as they look a bit spindly, I didnt do it earlier because some were flowering until late.  My garden was all upside down last year.  Tomatoes/pots got blight.. if it wasnt for my courgettes I would have given up.

p.s. I am thinking of doing some microgardening... I have a no dig/lasagne bed already.  Got to do some more reading up on it

Well, good for you summerpots It sounded a bit depressing then you've picked yourself up and started a new project. Good luck with the lasagne bed.

Busy-Lizzie wrote (see)

Lorraine, here is what the RHS says about propagating helleboures. 2 -3 years to flower from sowing seed.

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=113

Thanks for the link Busy-Lizzie  

Summerpots, I don't know much about clematis but I believe there are 2 or 3 different types that need cutting back at different times of the year. Having said that, several of mine have lost their labels or were 'rescued' from GCs without labels, so I just give them a haircut when they need it/I have the time. Have just hacked away a load of dead twigs from one to reveal big fat buds lower down.

thank you Artjak... I will have a go with the snippers, once its stopped snowing here.

Bunny- those Hellebore are wonderful especially the pink one

If you just cut your clematis down to a low pair of fat buds whatever sort you have should be fine 

And give it a feed  blood fish and bone, rose feed, something to encourage flowers

A question on Hellebores please,  can you tell me is it a corm,  I've never grown them before but having seem them on here and other threads I've quite fallen for them also what sort of soil do they need to be in,  thanks.

After a few hours of faffing about with a new phone, finally worked out how to get them onto laptop............not the most straight forward way I'm sure,

but it worked

 The new addition to the coldframes

 The beds were cleared recently of all the dead stuff, lots of space to put lovely new plants

They are great Hollie hock. I love the door on the tree xx

I have ordered some Hellebore seeds through eBay,  some Hybridus Red, Helleborus Orientalis Black and some Viridis Green,  now those names mean nothing to me but I liked the colour and as I'm up for a challenge I'll have a go fail or win.   Have just checked the weather for me and tomorrow it looks mild and wet so I think I might just set some Sweet peas away if nothing else they should at least be able to stand firm if the weather takes a nose dive,  bit too cold for anything else I think,  next month I'll try and get all my seeds away.

I've just got around to clearing from last autumn and delighted to find a double maroon hellebore and a double yellow one - beautiful to look at but I can't remember what they were called - they came from T & M as a pack several years ago.  They grow in dappled shade under a Viburnum which is just coming into flower and smells wonderful.  The rest of my hellebores are under the apple trees - they self seed copiously and each year I pot up the pure white ones and the deeper pink ones, but chuck away the more nondescript ones - then I offer them to my friends when they come into flower.

The snowdrops are wonderful this year, and on sunny day the palest mauve species crocus show their faces - they love to self seed into the surrounding grass area.

I also have some double primroses I bought last year fron the GC because they were scented and they are doing well.

It's lovely to see everything starting to pop up despite the snow flurries.

summerpots wrote (see)

It has been freezing here in Crawley and I dont feel any inclination to go and do anything in the garden but have a quick nosey round...  My onions are growing  slowly, my beans were eaten alive so dont think there will be any early beans now, but a couple of sweetpeas in pots that got left out are still growing like mad despite the snow and frost (dont understand that), my chives and parsely survived not sure what to do with my clematis tho... I had a new one that was doing well then it developed 3 buds over the winter which didnt flower, should I trim my clematis as they look a bit spindly, I didnt do it earlier because some were flowering until late.  My garden was all upside down last year.  Tomatoes/pots got blight.. if it wasnt for my courgettes I would have given up.

There are other threads about clematis, summerpots, but can I just say that it does matter when you prune your clematis if you want flowers this year. Clematis fall into three groups that have different pruning requirements. For around a fiver, you could get a booklet about them with pictures of lots of different ones to help identify yours, and also instructions about pruning. The RHS does one. Otherwise, try the British Clematis Society website. Have a great year's gardening!