David's Tips For February
Houseplant of the month
Kalanchoe blossfeldiana (Flaming Katy)
Wonderfully reliable when grown as house plants, Flaming Katy plants are native to northeastern Madagascar. They produce delightful flowers at various times of the year in a range of brilliant colours. These include red, orange, yellow, white, and bright pink.
The blooms are long-lasting, which makes them particularly popular as house plants. Low maintenance thanks to their succulent leaves, I always recommend these plants to beginner gardeners, or people with busy lifestyles. Cut off the spent flowers as soon as they’ve faded to encourage new shoots. By giving them at least 12 hours of darkness a day in late spring and summer, simulating winter conditions, they could flower all year.
Choose a sunny indoor spot for your kalanchoe and aim to keep it over 10 Celsius during the winter months. You can keep it in its original container, but once flowering has finished, it will benefit from repotting into a larger one. Only water once the top couple of centimetres are dry and remove dead flowers as they fade.
Outdoor plant of the month
Camellia japonica (Camellia)
The glossy emerald green of camellias is wonderful for containers or planting in the garden. For a fantastic late-winter colour this month, Camellia japonica is wonderful, with blooms available in a range of shapes and colours, ranging from white to vivid reds. Plant them in spring or autumn, or at other times of the year, in containers with frost protection. A partially shaded and sheltered location is ideal.
Camellias are where tea comes from, specifically Camellia sinensis. You could make tea from the leaves of Camellia japonica, but it might not be quite as tasty as that from sinensis.
Camellias are acid-loving plants, so test your soil to ensure it’s suitable. If you already successfully grow plants like rhododendrons or azaleas, it’s likely you already have acidic soil. If your soil is more limey, consider growing camellias in containers with peat-free ericaceous compost. You can also boost the acidity with sulphate of iron, or sequestered iron.
Gardening job for the month
Prune your wisteria
These beautiful and romantic climbing plants are a wonderful centrepiece when in flower between May and June. They look wonderful grown against walls or on sturdy pergolas. To keep them looking their best, make sure you prune them at the right time.
Wisteria plants benefit from pruning twice a year. Once between January and February, and once in July or August, after flowering has finished. So now is time for the winter prune. The summer prune serves to cut back long, whippy green shoots from the current year’s growth, controlling the size and encouraging more flowers. Alternatively, the winter prune tidies up the wisteria before the growing season starts, and ensures flowers aren’t covered by leaves.
So, when you prune your wisteria in winter, you further cut back the shoots from summer down to two to three buds. This ensures that larger blooms will grow once the flowers appear in spring and summer. You can also take the opportunity to tidy the plant up, get rid of wispy growth, and tie in other stems to continue training.
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