Don’t shoot you garden in the foot with shot weeds this year | The Compleat Home Gardener

It’s time to prune, snip, and pull.

The days are growing longer! Time to celebrate making it through another dark winter with some spring garden goals to get you ready for the busy planting season ahead.

Most important February garden goal: get rid of the shot weed…..now.

Shot weed has foliage arranged in a circular pattern with a stem of white blooms that pops up out of the middle of the circle. It thrives in cool, damp conditions so now is the time of year to mulch, pull or scorch the newly emerging shot weed before if takes over beds, borders and lawns.

The good news: This annual weed is easy to uproot and even edible plus it may take another month before the flowers turn into seeds and the plant starts to shoot its devil spawn all over your property.

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The bad news: If you wait until warmer weather to wage war on shot weed you will lose the battle. Too many seeds sent in too many directions too early in the spring. Pull or hoe or mulch shot weed this month.

Prune some hydrangeas back really hard

Do not prune the old-fashioned mop head hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) this month or you could be cutting off future flower buds as the common hydrangea blooms on two year old wood. Oak leaf hydrangeas are another type that should not be pruned in spring. You can always dead head or remove the faded blooms on your hydrangeas cutting back to a pair of healthy buds. Or you can just skip pruning these hydrangeas and let them grow as large as nature intended.

February is a good time to cut back Pee Gee hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata with pointed blooms) and the smooth or mountain hydrangeas (Hydrangea serralata) such as Lime light, Incrediball and Annabelle hydrangea varieties. These are the hydrangeas with h huge blooms that often are white but fade to lime or pink.

How to do a hard pruning on a Limelight or Incrediball hydrangea

It is easiest way to prune these hydrangeas is to just cut back all stems to within 10 inches from the ground. This will cause fresh new stems to sprout with plenty of time to form new buds before summer bloom. You may want to provide some support now as the new blooms on these varieties with giant flowers tend to flop to the ground in the summer rain.

Tip: A sturdy boxwood hedge can be grown in front of floppy hydrangeas to become a natural support for summer flowers.

Good news: If you don’t get around to pruning these hydrangeas with giant blooms don’t fret too much. You will still get flowers, but the blooms will be smaller and more numerous.

Get snippy with hellebore foliage

February is when the winter blooms of hellebores are most welcome and to fully appreciate the emerging stems of flowers now is the time to cut back the huge leaves left over from last summer. Yes, the hellebore plants will look naked with no leaves, but the emerging stems will be better able to show off the hellebore blooms. New leaves will emerge soon to surround the blossoms. Removing the old hellebore foliage now will also help to prevent foliage diseases. Always cut back any leaves with black spots and follow the stem all the way to the ground to remove it as well.

Marianne Binetti has a degree in horticulture from Washington State University and is the author of “Easy Answers for Great Gardens” and several other books. For answers to gardening questions, visit plantersplace.com and click “As The Expert”. Copyright for this column owned by Marianne Binetti. For more gardening information, she can be reached at her website, www.binettigarden.com.