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Welcome to 2022! January is the planning month for South Texas gardeners. Time to think about what/where/when/how, and most importantly, why to plant! Here are our top January to-do’s to set you up for a fun and successful Spring.

Check out our January Garden Guide for more tips and remember that trees, shrubs, and perennials can be planted 12 months out of the year! The only difference is the amount of water they need depending on temperatures and wind!

1. Set Your Gardening Intention

What are your reasons for gardening this year? Could be for stress relief, exercise, improving the environment, growing and cooking delicious food, attracting birds, or just enjoying being outside. Think about why you want to garden first, then use the month to plan your new garden spaces, clean up beds, and prepare your planting areas.

2. Keep Planting – But Watch The Weather

Our South Texas Spring is only about 45 days away! Pleasant weather brings the itch to start planting everything, but January weather is quite unpredictable, and temps can drop suddenly. January is a perfect time to plant trees & shrubs, greens & herbs, and cool weather flowers, just hold off on the tender tropicals.

3. Fertilize Your Citrus Trees

Use organic Citrus Tone by Espoma once you’ve finished your harvest. This helps your citrus get ready to bloom this Spring and produce a bumper crop next Fall-Winter. Reapply in June. You can feed in between with organic Hasta Gro.

4. Plant Climbing Roses

Our favorite climbing rose, the Peggy Martin variety, are blooming like crazy right now. Climbing roses benefit from being planted now and should not be cut back until after they have totally gone out of bloom. Other shrub roses should be cut back late January/early Feb to promote new growth and more Spring blooms.

5. Houseplants – Find a Good Spot

The key to vibrant and healthy houseplants is often just finding the right spot. A good starting point is to place near windows that get good indirect light for at least some portion of the day. Be sure to keep houseplants away from A/C and heat vents, which will dry them out. This Pilea is happy on a high shelf about 5 feet from a Western-facing window that gets indirect/dappled light through the trees outside.

6. Lawn Care

This Winter we’ve been diagnosing and treating fungal issues in lawns including the dreaded Take-All Root Rot. Check out our tips for prevention which include applying Peat Moss and making sure that you are not overwatering. For weeds, Bonide Weed & Crabgrass Preventer will help stop weed seeds from sprouting. Weed Beater Complete kills existing weeds and helps stop new weeds from sprouting.

Citrus Trees

Fertilize your citrus NOW for more blooms, May/June for better fruit set, September/October for nutrients.

For citrus trees, we recommend fertilizing with Espoma Citrus-Tone – all organic

Meyer lemons on left with fertilizer, Meyer lemons on the right without!

Knock-out Roses

We like to cut knock-out roses by the end of January or first week of February, even if they’re covered in blooms. We prefer to cut before roses have made their first big flush of Spring growth. Just like the hybrid tea roses, knock-out roses benefit from a hard trimming, usually down to 24”. Begin fertilizing mid-February.

We recommend fertilizing roses with all organic Rose-Glo. Works great for lots of other blooming plants.

Ornamental Grasses

Trim your ornamental grasses straight across (no “cupcakes”) to 3”-4” from the ground sometime in January. Follow up with a small amount of fertilizer late February or early March. Be stingy – too much fertilizer speeds up the growth, making the foliage flop over instead of stand up.

Next week, my grasses will be cut back and ready for a new growing season.

For ornamental grasses, Plant Tone, Medina Growin’ Green, or HastaGro are all great organic fertilizers. Just remember – not too much!

-Sally Gill

James Gill had his annual Get Ready for Spring garden talk here at Gill’s last weekend. As always, it was a big hit – standing room only! In case you missed it, we decided to do a recap:

Pre-Spring Lawn Tips

Prevent and treat Take All Root Rot using Peat Moss: Rake out dead grass, spread Peat Moss, and water it in. Wait until dry to water again.
Know when to water your lawn – if a screwdriver is hard to push into the soil, its’ time to water. If it pushes into the soil easily, you’ve got enough moisture.
Wait to fertilize your lawn until it’s growing, and you need to mow it once a week – usually March
If you get Bermuda grass in your landscape beds, use Grass B Gone
There’s not a practical way to remove Bermuda grass in your St. Augustine lawn – the best way is to keep your St. Augustine healthy (watered and fed) and it will choke out the Bermuda

To Prune or Not to Prune?

Prune Now

Lantana
Esperanza
Plumbago
Hibiscus
Firebush
Jatropha
Grasses
Shrub Roses

Do Not Prune

Crape Myrtles
Citrus Trees
Bougainvillea
Fig Trees

Prune AFTER Spring Bloom

Azaleas
Mountain Laurel
Indian Hawthorn
Climbing Roses

Fertilize Citrus Trees Now

Use organic Citrus Tone
Spread inside and just outside the drip line (where water drips off the tree branches and leaves when you water it)

-James

Last week Keith shared with me his Swiss Chard success story. Years ago, he remembers (I don’t) James and I gave Sandy & Keith a pot of Swiss Chard for Christmas. Knowing that Keith is a gardener extraordinaire, we knew it was the perfect gift for them. Keith grows it all – Brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, greens, herbs, and on and on! The Swiss Chard was such a hit with their family; it’s now one of his annual plantings.

Planted in the Fall, Winter or early Spring (now!) you’re guaranteed a good crop of tasty greens. Sandy is the family’s cook extraordinaire! She often stir-fries Swiss Chard, including the stalks, olive oil, garlic, a little lemon and salt for something simple and quick. Or, one of her favorite recipes is Seared Scallops with Bacon Braised Chard – she does it all.

Sandy and Keith make a very great team; we love them and their garden successes!

-Sally Gill

We have a passion for teaching and seeing your gardening success, and we know that gardening can seem challenging to the beginner since there’s so much to learn. That’s also the beauty of it – you can spend a lifetime gardening and still be learning!

We thought it would be fun to hold a talk for newcomers (either new to gardening or new to South Texas) to teach some secrets specific to our area. Here’s what James and Wyatt say would be their #1 piece of advice for newcomers. They’ll be discussing these topics and more this Saturday here at Gill’s – free and open to everyone!

James Gill – South Texas native, landscape designer, Texas Master Certified Nursery Professional (TMCNP), 42 years gardening and landscaping experience:

“Timing is so important! You don’t get beautiful tomatoes in April by planting them in March. And you’ll harvest way more strawberries in Spring by planting them in Fall. Maintaining a healthy lawn is much easier if you anticipate the seasonal periods that potential lawn problems are most likely to occur. Consistent gardening success is based on planning ahead, and we are here to help you with that.”

Wyatt Page – South Texas transplant, avid gardener, Garden Center Assistant Manager – 5 years gardening experience:

“Always start with the soil! It’s the home for your root system – the health of your plants is based on the quality of your soil. Here in South Texas, we have a somewhat tough soil for planting, but learning how to work with it will make you a successful gardener.”

Whether you are potting up new flowers for Spring or planting a new veggie garden, proper planting depth is critical to the success of your plant. All plants have surface level roots that are responsible for taking up water and nutrients to the rest of the plant; if the root ball is planted too deep, these roots can suffocate or rot. This causes the plant to decline rapidly. Here’s what those surface level roots look like:

When digging your hole for planting, dig twice as wide but only as deep as the root ball. If you dig too deep, soil can mound over the top and suffocate the feeder roots.

Once you have finished digging, place your plant into the hole to make sure you have the right depth. It’s okay for your plant to sit high in the hole – make sure the top of the root ball is not below ground level.

Now you can fill around the sides making sure that you don’t put any new soil over top of the existing root ball. As tempting as it may be, you should not cover the top of the root ball with pretty new soil! Covering it up with mulch is A-OK, just be sure not to stack mulch up against the trunk.

-Wyatt

Spring is in full swing and everyone is ready to get their lawn and landscape in shape for the season. Take these 3 steps to healthy grass that looks and feels great.

Remember – a healthy lawn keeps weeds and disease away. If you are having a problem with either, we can help! Bring us a sample of your grass, and we’ll diagnose and supply the best solution.

Wait for the right time to fertilize. Grass has just started to come out of Winter dormancy, and as we continue to get warmer, it will grow quicker. Once you are mowing your lawn once a week, you know it’s time to fertilize – wait until then! If you fertilize too early, before the grass is actively growing, the fertilizer will not be able to do its best work. We recommend using organic Medina Growin’ Green or our Gill Food. Feeding your lawn at the right time will give it the nutrients it needs to thrive through our Summer until we fertilize again in the Fall.
Water thoroughly, not frequently. As we start to warm up, lawns need to be watered once a week with one inch of water. You should maintain this watering now through the Summer. It’s always better to water thoroughly not frequently in order to maintain adequate soil moisture. If you find water running off into the gutter before you get one inch, you need to break your watering into two or three applications on the same day (Cycle Soak Method of Lawn Irrigation). The second and third watering will push the water down deeper into the soil, to help grow a deeper root system.
- Pro tip: Use the Tuna Can Test. Place an empty tuna or cat food can in the area where you are watering, or where your sprinkler is watering. Water the area until the can fills up with 1” of water, and you’ll know you’ve watered thoroughly.
Nature’s Blend: your lawn’s best friend. If you have dead or thin areas in your lawn, now is the time to fix them. Begin with raking out the dead grass in those spots, then spread a thin layer of Nature’s Blend compost across the dirt (about a quarter inch thick). The organic material will encourage new runners in those areas so they can start to grow and fill in. For any dead area 3ft. wide or greater, we recommend plugging in small pieces of sod. If the majority of the lawn is dead, it’s probably time to till, regrade, and re-sod.
- Pro tip: You can spread Nature’s Blend on your lawn 2-3 times a year to enhance your soil structure and prevent Take All Root Rot.

We’re so happy with the results we’ve seen from spreading Nature’s Blend that Gill’s is now offering this service! Give us a call if you’re interested in having us come out with our compost spreader and do the work for you.

– Wyatt

As we continue to monitor public health guidance and talk to our friends at other garden centers across the country, we’re reminded how important gardening is right now, at a time when sunshine and fresh air are especially good for us all.

While you’re spending more time at home, why not start a small food garden? Now is a great time to plant squash, cucumbers, peppers, okra, and lots of different herbs. A fun food project for kids (and adults too) is a 3 Sisters Garden. The 3 Sisters (corn, beans, and squash) all benefit each other when planted together, and you can get a sizeable harvest from just a 4’ x 4’ space.

Or find a not-so-exciting spot in your yard and get creative! Now is THE time for Spring flowers like Zinnias, Begonias, and Pentas. Periwinkles will be here very soon. If you’re planting flowers in the ground, be sure to condition your soil with compost. If you’re planting in pots, a good potting mix goes a long way. Use a good organic fertilizer when planting for healthy plants and better blooms.

Since we’re limiting our close contact with people for now, gardening can provide us with a connection to other living things – plants and wildlife. We planted a small garden here at Gill’s with Butterfly Weed, Gregg’s Mistflower, Jerusalem Sage, Shrimp Plant, and more to attract pollinators (bees, butterflies, hummingbirds) and it’s taken off in just a few weeks!

-Jesse