These 4 February Gardening Jobs Will Set You Up for a Successful Year – Don't Skip Them!

Spring is fast approaching, and if you get these four February garden jobs done before your plants wake up, you’ll enjoy tremendous benefits for the rest of the year. Trimmed, well-fed plants will be healthier and more floriferous for months to come, and a few hours invested now will pay back fourfold when it comes to watering and weeding in spring and summer. Ready to brave the chill? It’s worth it, you’ll see!

1. Pre-Season Prune

Hand pruners at the ready! February is a prime month for pruning many garden plants. A late winter prune to remove old growth, before the warmer weather of spring arrives, will direct the plant’s energy into growing plenty of flowers and fresh new shoots. It will also keep plants tidy and healthy.

Check your USDA zone and choose a mild, dry weather window, as it’s best not to prune in below-freezing temperatures. Frozen stems, particularly woody ones, are more brittle, so cuts may crack instead of quickly sealing, increasing the risk of disease.

A sharp pair of hand pruners, such as these Haus & Garten Titanium Pruners from Amazon, is strong enough to snip through most stems. For woodier or thicker stems, assistive pruners like these Ratchet Pruning Shears from Amazon, or a pruning hand saw like this Fiskars Hand Saw, also from Amazon, is better. Clean cuts heal faster, especially in cold weather. If you find yourself struggling to slice cleanly through a stem, the plant will struggle to seal the damaged stem-end and be unnecessarily stressed, so power-up if you need to.

Here’s what to prune this month:

• Tidy winter-flowering shrubs like mahonia and witch hazel once they’re done blooming. Trim summer-flowering shrubs, particularly those that flower on the current year’s growth like Hydrangea paniculata.
• Be brutal with fast-growing buddleja – it can be cut back by up to half its height.
• Prune roses, just before their buds break.
• Cut last year’s wisteria shoots back to three-or-so buds.
• Snip late-flowering (Group 3) clematis stems to just above the lowest pair of strong buds (leave other clematis be).
• Trim other climbers, such as ivy and Virginia creeper, before birds move in to build their nests.
• Shape deciduous trees and hedges pre-nesting season, too.

2. Start Clearing Dead Stems

You’ve likely left the stems of perennial plants standing over winter, both for garden structure and to provide wildlife with habitat and food. And do be judicious about what to clear, when, as those stems might still be doing a great job in either of those roles, depending on your zone.

For most perennials, simply pull the dead stems from the crown or cut them close to the ground, or as close as you can without damaging any new growth. Perennials that shoot from below the soil surface, like peonies, can safely be chopped to ground level. Leave old growth on borderline-hardy perennials like penstemons until after your last frost date, as it’ll help insulate the plant. For evergreen perennials such as red hot pokers, simply remove any dead, diseased or damaged leaves.

Use shears to trim old growth from deciduous ornamental grasses, cutting about an inch above the ground or as low as you can if new blades are already coming through. For evergreen grasses, comb through the blades to remove any dead foliage – a metal dog comb like this $3.98 Grooming Comb from Amazon will save your fingers from grass cuts.

Keep a careful eye out for diseased plant material with mildew, rust, or leaf-spots, and dispose of it in your household waste. It’s smart to remove any seedheads, too, before putting the rest on your compost heap.

Good Waste-Gatherers

3. Weed Like You Mean It

No-one loves weeding, but every minute you spend pulling out those pesky plants now will save you a half-hour in spring! The soil is usually soggy enough in February to pull up persistent perennial weeds with strong tap roots, like dandelions and docks. Annual weeds will start growing like wildfire as soon as the weather warms up, so get rid of them while they’re tiny enough to easily let go of the soil.

A weed-puller with a mid-length handle like this Weed Removal Tool from Amazon will save your back. And if you loathe weeding, then learn a trick from Japanese gardeners and treat yourself to a sharp-edged sickle like this Weeding Sickle from Amazon: it makes short work of removing most weeds.

4. Mulch Borders For an Easy Life

Now your borders are clear, applying a layer of mulch will suppress weeds and keep them that way. This layer of organic matter will also conserve moisture, meaning you won’t have to water as often, and slowly break down to improve soil nutrients and structure.

Choose a biodegradable mulch: homemade garden compost or leaf mold work well, or you can buy purpose-made mulch such as this Aspen Mulch from Amazon. Wood chippings are a cheap alternative, though they’ll take longer to decompose and improve the soil.

Spread a layer 2–3 inches thick over the soil, being careful not to heap it up against plants as it could cause rot. Don’t mulch under low-growing groundcover plants for the same reason.

Must-Have Mulching Tools

There’s one last little job to do, and that’s to make yourself a cup of coffee, take a seat, and survey your neat and tidy garden, all ready to sparkle as soon as spring arrives. Oh, and feel supremely smug when you see how well everything grows, for the rest of the year!