PG Tips: February

What to do this month: February

Summer-flowering bedding plants are easy to grow from seed and perfect for providing splashes of colour in borders, containers and hanging baskets. Some, including antirrhinums (snapdragons), impatiens (busy lizzies) and lobelias, need a long growing season to perform well and should be started indoors now. The seeds are best sown thinly in trays and placed in a heated propagator at 18C. Once the seedlings have established, pot them individually into 3in containers and keep them in a warm greenhouse or conservatory. All these bedding plants are half-hardy and should be planted outside, in a sunny spot with a welldrained soil, only when the danger of frost has passed.

Cut back those climbers wrapped around gutters and roofs – ivy, Virginia creeper, climbing hydrangea, Clematis montana and the rest. Take them back to a jagged, natural profile, not an engineer’s straight line. The tips of ivy shoots are notorious for breaking off and remaining stuck to the wall. Instead of peeling each shoot back from the tip (they break), cut through a larger stem a couple of feet lower down and tug vertically – the whole thing usually comes away intact.

Forget about those crummy, mass-market seedlings in laundry-accident pink, all you need for spectacular results is a plant with pedigree. Grow R. sangineum ‘Pulborough Scarlet’ and ‘King Edward VII’ for impact, brilliant red-flower salutes in a blue-and-yellow season; to brighten a corner use pure white ‘Ubric’; and for something special, even out of bloom, consider ‘Brocklebankii’ with its chartreuse-yellow leaves.

Now is the time to sow summer radishes in the border soil of a frost-free greenhouse. Choose suitable varieties such as ‘Rudi’ and ‘Fluo’, and sow the seeds thinly in ½in-deep drills. The ground should be kept reasonably moist, and the radishes will be ready to harvest in mid-spring. In mild areas, you can also sow these radishes outdoors in late winter – the soil must be well drained, and you should protect the plants with cloches.

If you like alpine strawberries, then now is a good time to propagate some new plants. ‘Alexandria’ is an easy-to-grow variety. Fill a seed tray with moist seed compost and scatter the seeds on top, then cover them with a thin layer of vermiculite. Position the tray in a heated propagator (about 18C) and place in a well-lit room. Once the seedlings are large enough to handle, transfer them to 3in pots and move to a kitchen windowsill. The strawberries should be planted outside, 12in apart, in April or May; they prefer a semi-shaded spot and reasonably moist, fertile soil.