Southwest: February Garden To-Do List

February in the Southwest is a great time to get back into your garden . Winter is coming to an end , and spring is right around the corner , which makes it an idealistic time to get engraft !

fertilise your fruit trees . The amount of constituent fertilizer you need depends on the sizing of your tree . Check your favorite fertilizer stain ’s focus to ensure that you ’re feeding your tree sufficiently . commemorate to give your fruit trees a thick and healthy pane of water the day before you inseminate .

previous February is the perfect prison term to start cut overgrown or frost - bite bush , cacti , and perennial . Check your Texas ranger ( Leucophyllum frutescens , Zones 8–10 ) , salvias ( Salviaspp . and cvs . , Zones 5–11 ) , grasses , and deciduous fruit Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . When cutting back damage leave or paddles from your cactus and succulent , be certain to tailor at an slant . Dust the clear wounds with powdered sulphur to help oneself prevent fungal infections . Once you have pruned your perennial , water them deeply , but wait to fertilize until you see newfangled growth .

Plant spring- and summertime - flower plant . Now is a bully sentence to plant those summer - flowering bulbs such as daffodils ( Narcissusspp . and cvs . , Zones 3–9 ) , crocus ( Crocusspp . and cvs . , Zones 3–8 ) , Allium ( Alliumspp . and cvs . , Zones 4–8 ) , and ranunculus ( Ranunculusspp . and cvs . , Zones 8–11 ) . It ’s also a good time to plant ornamental Gunter Wilhelm Grass , spring and summer perennial , and icing - tender shrub . As always , stay on to watch the conditions for any cold snaps . If you ’re interested about the cold , just track up your freshly planted shrub and perennial with a frost cloth .

fertilize the hummingbird . Hopefully you ’ve been keeping those hummingbird mirthfully feed throughout the winter with your pollinator - well-disposed plant life . If you also treat them to a feeder , be certain you keep it clean and wise , swap out the ambrosia every six to seven days in the wintertime and every two to three twenty-four hours in the warmer months . Although some masses adapt their sugar - to - water ratios to keep the mixture from freezing , it ’s recommend that you cover to use a 1:4 sugar - to - piddle ratio twelvemonth - rotund . Although adding more sugar prevents it from freeze as rapidly , it ’s better for the birds ’ health to keep the mixture reproducible . If you ’re still experience stale nights , do what we do and bestow your feeders in at night , then cling them out of doors again in the wee time of day of the break of the day before the hummingbirds start to feed .

Check your fruit tree diagram for signs of aphids . Aphids tend to hide out under leaves and out of direct sunlight . They range in colour from green to black , and they attack the plant by suck the muggins from the leaves . If you find them , use a spray of water or soapy H2O to absent them from your leave-taking before the problem worsens . Another direction to prevent aphids is to invite some ladybugs to your gardens to help take away any future infestation , since ladybugs sleep with junket on aphids .

— Sheila Schultz and Laurel Startzel are a mother - daughter twosome who found Denver Dirty missy Container Gardening while living in Denver and have continued their patronage since moving to Tucson , Arizona .

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Northwest: February Garden To-Do List

Southeast: February Garden To-Do List

South: February Garden To-Do List

Northeast: February Garden To-Do List

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