Northern California: January Garden To-Do List

Though January is often the coldest and dampest calendar month of the yr for Northern Californian gardener , it ’s also the thoroughgoing metre for tidy up after last twelvemonth , readying your garden for the upcoming time of year , and freshening up with a few newfangled additions .

Prune , spray , and feed your roses(Rosaspp . and cvs . , Zones 3–9 ) . January is the best clip to manage for roses . Using sportsmanlike tool , snip your roses as much as halfway back . Spray with a atomic number 29 - based antifungal agent and a horticultural oil , and then fertilize .

leverage and plant bareroot fruit trees and roseswhile the pick are plentiful in your local baby’s room . industrial plant as soon as you’re able to after leverage , ensuring they get off to a great beginning by placing them in a mix made from 50 % of your native dirt and 50 % compost or E. B. Stone Organics Soil Booster . Give your new rosebush or yield Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree the nutrients it postulate to promote goodish newfangled roots and top growing by adding E. B. Stone Organic Sure Start at planting clock time . If gophers are a trouble in your garden , protect your new bareroot surface or fruit tree diagram ’s roots with a root guard or gopher cage .

It ’s clock time to prune and spray deciduous fruit trees . Use incisive , clean tool , and clean your shaft again between trees to keep the paste of disease . Remove any stagnant , cross , or damaged branches . Prune to restore balance wheel to each tree , to give up the inside to sunlight , to increase air circulation , to promote next fruiting branches , and to keep trees at a manageable size — both for future pruning and for ease of harvest home . Make your cuts at 45 ° angles , and prune between a fourth of an inch and a half - inch above the branch or leafage bud . endocarp fruit trees — peaches , nectarines , apricot , and plums ( Prunusspp . and cvs . , Zones 3–8)—require even heavier pruning than in the universal instructions given above . For stone yield trees , plan on reducing the intact tree by about a third each class . After pruning , spray your deciduous fruit trees with Bonide ’s All Seasons Horticultural and Dormant Spray Oil to see to it overwinter insects .

Control peach leaf curl . Peaches and nectarine ask a lilliputian extra helper . Spray with a generous coat of sulfur or copper - based fungicide spray to aid combat peach leaf curl , making certain you hide the total Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . Bonide Natural Copper Fungicide works well , as does Monterey Liqui - Cop Copper Fungicide .

Cut back your clematis ( Clematisspp . and cvs . , Zones 4–9).The Montana chemical group or evergreen varieties need no pruning except to tidy up or to take dead or straying branches . For all other established clematis vines , cut back to a pair of buds 2 to 3 groundwork from ground horizontal surface . freshen the mulch around the roots to conserve wet , and flow them with a well - balanced plant food .

orderliness summer - blooming bulbs , corms , and tubers . For handsome summer blooms , lodge begonia ( Begoniaspp . and cvs . , Zones 6–12 ) , dahlia ( Dahliaspp . and cvs . , Zones 8–11 ) , gladiolus ( Gladiolusspp . and cvs . , Zones 7–10 ) , lilies ( Liliumspp . and cvs . , Zones 3–8 ) and other summer bloomers from your favorite on-line or ring mail order catalog now . Though the delightfully pink and frilly dinnerplate ‘ Nadia Ruth ’ Dahlia pinnata is unfeignedly tempting , be indisputable to delay out my current all - time favorite Dahlia pinnata , the lovely ‘ Milena Fleur ’ . Recently present and one of the prettiest summertime bloomers available , this summary diverseness ( reaching 32 inches marvellous ) produce abundant perfect - for - cut 4 - inch blossom in red-hot hues of gold - blushed , swarthy , bubblegum pink all the means from midsummer through fall .

Continue to protect your freeze - legal tender plants . January is cold-blooded in Northern California ! Monitor night temperatures , and be ready to protect your citrus tree trees ( Citrusspp . and cvs . , Zones 9–11 ) , tender perennial , and succulent if hoarfrost is predicted . Taller citrus trees can be keep tender with sure-enough - fashioned holiday lights twined through the branches . A floating quarrel cover or hoar cover drape above your ship’s boat plants will ensure continued wellness and selection through the chilly night . ( I use bamboo stakes transcend with lawn tennis testis to sustain a frost cloth . ) Wilt - Stop , an anti - transpirant spray , is also helpful .

— Fionuala Campion is the proprietor and manager of Cottage Gardens of Petaluma in Petaluma , California .

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Northeast: January Garden To-Do List

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