Nearly the end of February and time to start a bit of tidying and pruning in the garden. I keep most of the seed heads over winter as they provide architectural interest during the winter months and also food and shelter for wildlife.
We have to start clearing some of it away now as new growth is appearing and this may be damaged if we cut back the old too late.
One thing we have done is to cut back the old flower stalks of the globe artichokes. We grew these perennial plants from seeds many years ago and they not only provide a tasty harvest, but by August we start to leave some of the globes to flower, a beautiful blue.
These seed heads are then left to mature, provide seeds for the birds and other wildlife over winter before being cut down in February. The old foliage has been cleared and new growth appears from December.
Some of the seed heads are still intact so this year I put them on the “metal leaves” art installation to create this:
