Top ten plants for February gardens

Daphne are hardy shrubs renowned for their scent, and this no exception. Also known as February daphne due to their early flowering, this makes them a great choice to be planted close to the house.

The pretty flowers are strong and sweetly scented, with purple/pink colouring.

Next, is an easy to grow shrub that’s happy in sun or shade, making it ideal for a north or east facing wall or corner. At this time of the year, mature specimens are covered in highly decorative, long drooping catkins that look like silk tassels.

For an interesting looking, unusual shrub, look no further. Like a lot of winter flowering plants, they produce the bright yellow flowers before the leaves to give both winter scent and colour. What’s more is they look great in beds, borders, or containers – as long as pollinators have access!

This easy to grow, upright, compact camellia is covered in white double flowers. The shiny, evergreen leaves guarantee interest all year round. The gorgeous flowers are the start of the show and can grow up to 10cm in diameter.

These very hardy slow growing shrubs have great autumn leaf colour, ranging from yellow to deepest orange. As well, they have exquisite small flowers in shades of orange to red in February/March. It’s ideal to mulch the soil around their roots every autumn, and they’ll pretty much look after themselves.

Planting crocus will give a glorious splash of colour lower down on the ground because they only grow up to 10cm tall. This pretty cultivar has mauve coloured petals above silver lined leaves, which provide much needed food for pollinating insects.

Next is another pick that’s early flowering, easy to establish and multiply, and virtually maintenance free. Winter aconite are ideal for planting in informal grassy areas or under deciduous trees and shrubs. The cup-shaped bright yellow flowers will brighten any area on a cold, grey day and are perfect for attracting pollinating insects to the garden.

These vigorous plants produce a late-winter show of richly fragrant, purple flowers, so they are ideal winter perennials for February. Planted in full sun, they’ll do well whatever your soil type.

Although these clump-forming evergreen plants look like a type of grass they are actually part of the lily family, hence their common name, lily turf.  The wonderful dark, strap-shaped leaves will turn even darker when grown in full sun.

They contrast beautifully with snowdrops in late winter and produce small spikes of mauve, bell shaped flowers in the summer. Plus, they’re really easy to grow and maintain.

It’s possible to keep this amazing perennial in flower 12 months of the year if you remove the dead flowers regularly. Although it’s short lived, it’s easy to take and grow on cuttings to replace. This undemanding evergreen plant produces masses of mauve flowers above grey, green leaves and will grow even in the poorest of soils too.