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 “Februarius” was the twelfth month of the Roman year. On our calendar, February is the second month, characterized by the cruel, cold arggghhs of a winter not yet over!
But not to worry — at Payne’s, it's already Spring! Our garden seeds are coming in to both our Santa Fe stores. We've got tons of plants blooming right now, including potted bulbs, orchids and gardenias in bud. (Keep in mind that all of our plants, tools, gardening supplies and bagged goods can be delivered within Santa Fe city limits for just $8.00.)
February’s a great month to get seeds for this year’s crop of annual flowers. Buy now and avoid  the last minute rush, because by May 15th, our last official frost date, it is likely we will have run out of the highest-demand seeds. Our number #1 best-selling annual flower seed? Blue-flowered morning glories (Ipomoea purpurea ‘Clarke’s Heavenly Blue’), followed closely by sunflowers (Helianthus annuus). But this year we expect a big run on vegetable seeds, too!
If you have a greenhouse, fluorescent light plant-growing units, or a very sunny sunroom, late February isn’t too early to start seeds of begonias, petunias, pansies, violas, lobelias, and snapdragons, which take a long time to mature to blooming size. (We’ll also have tons of lovely annuals for sale in four-packs beginning in March.)
Please Note: Our winter hours continue in February Monday through Saturday, 9 AM to 5 PM.
Hint: Watch for information about our annual Spring Fling, tentatively scheduled for the weekend of March 28th. It’ll be a great big party, and our employees will be on hand in all our departments to answer your gardening questions.
Now here’s what to do in your Northern New Mexico garden in February. (Many thanks to various County Agricultural Extension Services, to Charlie Nardozzi, Horticulturist, of the National Gardening Association, and to Dr. Leonard Perry of the University of Vermont Extension Department of Plant and Soil Science, for some of the material in the sections that follow.)
FEBRUARY BULBS, CORMS, & TUBERS
Check on those bulbs you potted up and put in cold storage for forcing! They’ll need 12 to 16 weeks of cold treatment before they’ll be ready for the warmth. Keep the soil in their pots barely  moist till their time is up. Then bring their pots into a cool (50-60ºF) bright room and gradually expose them to increasing warmth (no greater than 68ºF) and INDIRECT sunlight (NO direct sun at this stage, please).
As the shoots emerge and grow taller, slowly increase watering, letting the surface of the pot dry slightly between waterings, feeding once a week with a half-strength houseplant fertilizer (or place in each pot a teaspoon of a time-release plant food like Osmocote™). To help the stems grow straight, turn the pot every day. When buds and foliage are fully developed, bring your bulb pots into full sunlight and dance a jig for the coming Spring! But keep them under 70ºF if possible. The warmer you keep your blooming bulbs, the shorter their stems will be and the faster they’ll flower and fade.
If you saved summer blooming bulbs (corms, and rhizomes of gladioli, dahlias, tuberous begonias, crocosmias) in your basement, check on them now. Mist any that are shriveled, and compost any that are rotten. Repack them with fresh sawdust or horticultural grade vermiculite and keep it just barely moist (don’t overwater).
FEBRUARY COMPOSTING
 Now might be a good time to give your compost heaps a turn. In rural Switzerland, where the soil is so rich you could plant a pair of leather gloves and grow a cow, the farmers keep three compost bins side by side (wooden pallets hammered together on three sides make great bins). To turn their heaps, they just pitchfork the compost from bin No. 1 into empty bin No. 2, then start adding scraps and vegetable refuse (1 part green to 3 parts dry) to bin No. 1 again. When bin No. 1 gets full again, they pitch No. 2’s contents into No. 3, No. 1’s contents into No. 2, and start on No. 1 again. It’s great exercise (if you have a bad back, give a young person five bucks to do the job for you) and your garden will love you for it.
FEBRUARY CONTAINER GARDENING
Craft idea for February: buy some wooden half-barrels or other frostproof containers from Payne’s and paint them with nontoxic latex outdoor paints in distinctive designs (Southwestern, astrological, religious) or to match your décor.
FEBRUARY EQUIPMENT
Now’s a great time to buy all the supplies you’ll need for starting seeds. Beginning this  month, Payne's will have a great selection of seed-starting supplies at both our locations. It’s also a great time to repaint flower boxes, outdoor furniture and the like, and to inventory tools and other equipment to see what needs to be replaced. If you have indoor plant lights, check their ends to see if they have begun to become cloudy or darkened. If they have, replace them.
And don’t forget your most important gardening equipment: your body!
Start training for spring gardening now by taking a walk at least three times away, doing yoga, using hand weights, or home exercise equipment. Go easy — slow and steady wins the race; this ain’t the Triathlon you’re training for, sister — and remember to stretch (ge-e-e-e-ently).
FEBRUARY FERTILIZING & MULCHING
Keep that mulch away from tree and shrub trunks! Rodents can burrow under it and nosh on the bark of your ornamentals, girdling their trunks and killing them.
FEBRUARY GRASSES & LAWNS
Don’t cut back those ornamental grasses yet! Wait another month at least. Because the weather is warmer, if you cut them prematurely, they may start to push up new growth prematurely, only to have it frozen with late cold snaps.
FEBRUARY GREENHOUSES
 Thinking of buying a greenhouse for the first time? Consider this tip: get the biggest greenhouse you can afford. Why? Because — trust us — you’ll fill it up fast with all the gardening projects you’ve been dreaming about all winter! Other things to consider when greenhouse shopping are the time that greenhouse maintenance demands; the correct site (the more sunlight your greenhouse gets all day the better); and the costs of pouring a foundation, running electricity out to the greenhouse or putting in a solar electric system, installing venting or air circulation equipment, and putting in plant benches and a potting area.
If you haven’t cleaned up and sterilized your greenhouse shelves, cement floors, and benches, now’s the time to do it. Mix 1 part bleach with 9 parts water and soak the surfaces (the longer the better). Then rinse everything down well.
FEBRUARY HERBS
Spice up those winter menus! Payne's North on 304 Camino Alire has a great selection of herb plants for sale right now, including some fabulous mixed herb gardens in pots perfect for a sunny windowsill. And now's a good time to consider starting seeds for perennial or biennial herbs, such as rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, lavender, and oregano.
FEBRUARY HOUSEPLANTS & TROPICALS
Got cabin fever? Come treat yourself! At both our locations, Payne’s has lots of glorious houseplants coming in right now, with more on the way — including exquisite blooming orchids,  air plants (bromeliads), and flowering bulbs.
Protect your houseplants from cold drafts. At night move the plants away from the windows or place a piece of cardboard between them and the window. Remove it in the morning. Be alert also to sun damage on your tropicals. It’s amazing how fast our Northern New Mexico sunlight will begin to grow in intensity as March approaches!
Start fertilizing your indoor plants if you haven’t been already. (I prefer Osmocote™ time release fertilizer because I don’t h ave to mix it fresh each time — one application lasts 3 or 4 months — and because, unlike organics, which I prefer to use on my outdoor plants, Osmocote™ doesn’t attract those yucky clouds of fungus gnats.)
Cut back your leggy geraniums. Take 4-6” stem cuttings, using a sharp knife that has been dipped in rubbing alcohol between cuts. Strip off the bottom set of leaves, dip the cut ends in rooting hormone powder (available from Payne’s!), and stick the cuttings in a pot filled with moistened potting soil. Don’t let the cuttings touch in the pot. Keep the soil just moist, place the pots in a warm place, and the cuttings should root within a month.
Cut flower preservation tip: When buying cut flowers, arrange them in a vase of warm water, and add either commercial floral preservative or the following homemade recipe: 1 cup lemon-lime NON-diet soda (the sugar gives the flowers energy while the acidity helps water move in the stems), 3 cups water, and ¼ teaspoon household bleach (to control bacteria). Change the vase water every couple of days, and don’t mix new flowers with old, as water from older flowers may be stale with bacteria. Remember also that cut flowers keep longer when cool. Keep them away from smoke and ripening fruits (the latter often give off ethylene gas which triggers the flowers’ maturation and seed-setting cycle).
FEBRUARY PERENNIALS
Now’s a good time to start seeds of perennial plants, which usually need a whole year to develop before they’re ready to put out a decent crop of flowers. Be sure to follow the directions on the seed packet label, because some perennial seeds need a period of exposure to moist cold and/or darkness in order to trigger germination.
FEBRUARY PESTS & DISEASES
Watch for white flies, aphids, and spider mites on your indoor plants this month. We sell both organic and nonorganic pest controls at both our stores; come on buy and we’ll tell you about our favorites.
FEBRUARY PLANTING & TRANSPLANTING
Fun February Indoor Planting Project: Try this Victorian craft with your kids! Take a shallow bowl. Buy some organic carrots, rutabagas, beets, or celery roots (don’t use nonorganic veggies; they’re usually treated with a sprouting-inhibitor, which will defeat the purpose of the experiment). Cut off the top inch or two of the vegetable, using a sharp knife (don’t cut yourself!). Place that top cutting into your bowl, surround it with gravel or pebbles to hold it firmly in place, and fill the bowl with water. Then put the bowl in warm place. In a few days, the cut roots will begin sending up foliage. (The Victorians used sprouted roots such as these as decorations for their mantelpieces.)
FEBRUARY ROSES
Reserve your 2010 Payne’s Roses today! We have a great selection due in, including lots of  fragrant cultivars and some fabulous climbers! Each No. 1 grade, 3-gallon rose bush will retail for only $22.99, 'way less than the comparable item at our most distinguished competitor's. For a complete list of roses organized by type, click here. For a complete list of roses organized by strength of perfume, click here. For a complete list of roses organized by color, click here. For detailed instructions on making roses thrive in Northern New Mexico, click here. For instructions on how to reserve your rose selections for 2010, click here.
FEBRUARY SHRUBS & TREES
Once daytime temperatures regularly top 50ºF where you live it'll be time to spray dormant oil on your fruit and ornamental trees. Make sure you apply the dormant oil before any color shows from the branch tips of your deciduous trees. Now’s also a time to check for rabbit or  rodent damage to trees and shrubs. Hardware cloth wrapped around stems can help protect against further harm.
If we get more heavy wet snow, be sure to shake it off your evergreens and shrubs. The branches and stems of dormant trees and shrubs tend to be more brittle than when the plants are in active growth, and can snap off from the weight of a heavy wet snow. If you find a branch that has partially split from the main trunk, tie it back into place and use some long screws to secure it (insert them so that they alternate coming from each direction). If you catch this wound early, the tree might callous over the wound and heal it.
FEBRUARY VEGETABLE & FRUIT GROWING
More and more folks are turning to home food gardening as a way of coping with recession prices. This spring, we’ll be featuring at least one free workshop on growing fruits and vegetables at home in Northern New Mexico. Watch this website and the newspapers for more info on this and all our other spring workshops!
Outdoors, check your strawberries to make sure their mulch is still good. Check also your rows of garlic, overwintered spinach, kale and other winterable crops to make sure the alternate freezing and warming of their beds hasn’t exposed their roots. If you find exposed roots, gently heap compost over them to protect them from frost-damage.
If you have a greenhouse, fluorescent light plant-growing units, or a very sunny sunroom, late February isn’t too early to start seeds of leeks and onions, which take a long time to mature (10-12 weeks of indoor growing before they’re ready for planting out in the garden). Sprinkle the seed (available at Payne’s!) on top of a flat of seed-starting mix, keep the mix moist, and as soon as the seedlings emerge, put the flats under grow lights. Keep the seedlings snipped to 3 or 4” tall to help them grow strong. Now’s also the time to start seeds of celery and asparagus. You can also start seeds of lettuce and spinach any time for a cut-as-you-will indoor salad garden. And what about sprouts for your Humans and cat grass for your tabbies? We’ve got the fixins for both here at Payne’s!
By the way, if you’re planning on growing legumes this year — particularly soybeans, snap beans, limas, peas, or sugar snap peas — try inoculating the seed with legume inoculant, a black powder containing the specific strains of nitrogen-fixing bacteria legumes need to draw nitro from the soil as they grow. It REALLY makes a difference in your ultimate crops, and we just got in our shipments of inoculant. Buy it now and keep it in the fridge until pea- and bean-planting time (traditionally in Northern New Mexico, around St. Patrick’s Day next month, though you folks living in warm Española might be able to do it earlier). Why buy your legume inoculant now? Because we usually get a run on it in April and May.
FEBRUARY VINES
"Vine-sicle" Alert: If you have vines growing up the side of your house under your eaves, be on the alert for snow melt off the roof dripping down into the vine, then freezing into heavy icicle sheets. Left to accrue, the ice can eventually get so heavy it can snap off the dormant vines. Carefully knock down icicles as they form to prevent weight build-up.
FEBRUARY WATERING
Watering Reminder: We repeat from December: If there hasn’t been any snow for a while, water your yard deeply twice a month whenever sunny days appear to thaw out your hoses. When you’re done watering, be sure to let your hoses drain thoroughly before recoiling them. Just stretch them out with both ends open, preferably on a gentle slope. Otherwise, the water left in the hose may freeze and split the hose. And make sure your outdoor faucets are covered to protect them from freezing! You can purchase faucet covers at any hardware store.
FEBRUARY WEEDING
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FEBRUARY WILDLIFE
Keep those suet block holders and black oil sunflower seed feeders filled! Consider adding dried corn on the cob, shelled corn, or cracked corn for the bigger birds, such as mountain blue jays and mourning doves.
Remember also to provide water for the birds. It’s often very difficult for them to find in the wintertime. A heated birdbath is great, but make sure you have a grounded, three pronged outlet to plug it into, or you might electrocute your feathered buddies (and yourself). Also make sure your heated birdbath has a covered heating element, or the birds can burn their feet on it. A flat piece of rock placed over the uncovered or covered heating element will give the birds a nice place to perch while they drink, bathe, and gossip. Think “Jemez Springs” for the birds! If you have romping pets in your yard, such as dogs, cats, or moose, make sure your birdbath is securely situated. Hollow-base birdbaths can be filled with gravel or sand to prevent their tipping easily.
And don’t forget to keep your bird feeders and bird baths clean. When the seed in your feeder gets low, shake out any excess onto the ground (ground feeding birds will soon snap it up!), making sure to dump out wet clumps of old seed. Every three weeks or so to keep moldy old seed and bird poop from making your avian guests ill. bring the feeder indoors, and scrub it thoroughly in a solution of 1 part household bleach to 9 parts hot water. Rinse thoroughly and allow it to air dry before refilling. Treat bird baths the same way. If you have hummingbird feeders, scrub them out, too, using the same solution.
OTHER PROJECTS FOR FEBRUARY
• Write down a list of all your gardening questions to ask our experts. Or send them in to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
-- we’ll answer them in this column!
— Compiled and written by Rand B. Lee
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