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.
Shirlee Smith says
My Floratam grass has struggled since it was put in and finally gave out this year. It is under a scrub oak that sheds a lot of leaves and this year the mother lode of acorns. We still would like grass in the front yard, but now we plan on moving the grass right up to the house line and switch it out with the mulched area that is right up against the house now.
Is there a grass that can grown on the sand and that doesn’t require a ton of light all day. I don’t care if it gets burrs in it either. We just want something green in our front yard.
Thanks, Shirlee Smith
James Gill says
Floratam is more shade tolerant than bermuda, but it still would like very bright shade at the least, and preferably a few hours of direct sun. You might consider creating a bed under the oaks, filled with shade tolerant shrubs, and let the leaf fall and acorns serve as a free mulch. American beautyberry and turks cap are native in exactly that habitat, and will give you colorful berries and blooms while feeding butterflies, songbirds, and hummingbirds with a minimum of watering or other effort on your part. They are both more pleasing to our eye if they are pruned back substantially just one time, in late winter (last week of January).
Lainnie Bowers says
What can we do to prevent gofers and moles from destroying my yard? We have tried 3 different types of traps but none have worked this far.
Jesse says
There’s a natural product called MoleMax formulated form castor oil that repels moles and gophers. We no longer carry it, but you should be able to find it relatively easily. Or you can try making a home remedy of castor oil and detergent and pouring it down the hole.