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North Mississippi Gardening Tips
January/February, 2002

Notes for January and February

It's the new year and time to start thinking and planning for the gardening year ahead. Get out a pencil and notepad and walk around your landscape (you need the exercise anyway after all of that holiday feasting!) making notes of what worked and what didn't work in your garden this past year. Make sketches of the areas you want to change or expand. Using these notes, start your wish list of plant material. You should have no problem choosing plants--I don't know a gardener alive who isn't inundated with seed and plant catalogs this time of year which are loaded with pages of colorful, eye-popping specimens. The problem is to maintain some sense of control while looking through hundreds of pages of perfect plants. Although it will be a struggle, one which I admit I have lost occasionally, please don't mindlessly order everything that strikes your fancy. Consider these things before mail ordering any plant material: (1) Will it grow well in my climatic zone? (I don't mean just barely survive, but thrive and live to bloom and multiply!) (2) Do I have a suitable place for this plant? (3) Is ordering by mail the most cost effective way to obtain this plant? (4) Do I honestly need this or have I temporarily lost touch with reality and I am living in a gardening dream world where money does grow on trees and countless young people with strong backs are begging to do my bidding.

Annual Flowers and Vines

What in the world can I write about this topic in the dead of winter? I can't think of a single typical annual flower or vine that is alive and well in my north Mississippi garden right now. Can you? In the last issue I did write about all those winter annuals we can grow such as poppies, pansies, etc., so we covered that already. How about let's consider our choices of annual vines for this spring. Many gardeners are familiar with the beautiful annual vines that are members of the sweet potato family: morning glory, moon vine, cypress vine, and cardinal climber. But how about trying some of these lesser-known species of annual vines: Love-in-a-Puff (Cardiospermum halicacabum), purple bells (Rhodochiton atrosanguineum), Canary bird vine (Tropaeolum) and Firecracker vine (Mina lobata). The firecracker vine and purple bells require a long growing season to bloom (3-4 months from seeding to bloom) and the canary bird vine prefers the cool weather of spring or fall to grow best. All of these vines can be grown from seed ordered from that stack of seed catalogs you just received or purchased from your favorite garden center.

Bulbs

Crocus and the early daffodils are typically the first bulbs to herald the beginning of the gardening year. Daffodils are by far the showiest and most popular spring-flowering bulbs. I know that probably the best time to move daffodils is when the plants are dormant, but I can't remember where they are after the foliage dies and I invariably wind up slicing through half the bulbs in a clump as I fumble around with the shovel. You can move the things when they are in bloom, if you are very careful to move as much soil as possible with the clump as you do so. This is the preferred technique and a real boon to landscaping when you are considering bloom color, height and successive bloom times-all the things you can't remember when the plant is dormant. So go right ahead and move that clump of fragrant jonquils where you can more easily enjoy their heady aroma, just move the dirt along with them and water well after transplanting!

Container Gardens

If you received a pot plant as a Christmas present, you either have taken good care of it and it looks fine or it's dead as a door nail because you over watered or totally neglected it as you partied all during the holidays-shame on you! One holiday gift plant that always seems to put people in a quandary is the poinsettia. What to do with that plant as it steadily loses leaves and appeal is always the question. I am inclined to take rather a hard view and chunk it out with the dried up Christmas tree. It is such a rigmarole to get it to look good and flower again next Christmas that I would much prefer that my friends just buy me another one next Christmas. This makes them happy (they don't have to figure out what to get me) and the garden centers like this, too (more sales for them).

For those of you that are more tender-hearted than I and cannot bring yourself to part with a gift from a friend, here's what you do. Call your county Extension office and request the Information Sheet 227, "Caring for Poinsettias." It contains information on continued growth and flowering of poinsettias.

Fruit

Now and any time prior to bud swell in the spring is the proper time to prune fruit trees, bunch grapes and muscadines. Properly pruning your fruit trees will increase both the quality and quantity of your harvest. Pruning is especially important during the first two to three years of a fruit tree's growth to establish the correct branching structure to ensure a bountiful harvest. To learn more about the proper pruning techniques to use ask for the following publications from the county Extension office: Information Sheet 1432 "Apples and Pears;" Information Sheet 1434 "Peaches, Nectarines, and Plum;" Information Sheet 1444 "Bunch Grapes and Blackberries;" and Information Sheet 1445 "Muscadines."

Apply a recommended dormant spray to tree fruits, semi-bush fruits and grapes. Refer to Extension service publications, #510 "Homeowner Grape Insect and Disease Control;" #568 "Homeowner Peach and Plum Insect and Disease Control;" and #736 "Homeowner Apple and Pear Insect and Disease Control" for recommended rates. Spray after pruning and only when the applied spray material will dry before it freezes.

Groundcovers and Lawns

To control existing winter weeds in the dormant lawn apply a postemergence herbicide directly on the weeds. Contact your local garden center for recommended herbicides and rates. Plan to use a preemergence herbicide next fall to kill next year's crop. If you have had several winter weeds to mature and produce seed, you will certainly have the potential for a big weed crop next winter. Make notes and plans now. Do not use pre-emergence weed controls if you are planning to re-plant or reseed your lawn.

Perennial Flowers and Vine

If you have a really sunny window, grow-light set-up, or a greenhouse, you can successfully start these biennial and perennial flowers by sowing seed beginning in late January through February: foxglove, hollyhock, purple cone-flower, rudbeckia, and stokesia. Seedlings will be ready to plant in mid-March after the hardest freezes have passed.

Keep perennial beds mulched with pine straw or other material to protect newly emerging shoots from hard freezes and to help control winter weeds. If a severe freeze is forecast (temperatures in the teens or single digits), emerging foliage of perennials can be protected by covering with pine needles, straw or several layers of newspaper. Don't forget to remove the covering when the cold spell has passed.

Trees and Shrubs

January and February are great months to plant shade and flowering trees. Nurseries typically begin to get their dormant tree stock during this time. When purchasing trees, select specimens with straight unscarred trunks, tight, smooth unblemished bark, and a dominant shoot or leader. Always plant trees at the correct depth in a well-prepared hole. Dig the planting hole three to five times the diameter of the soil ball (for container plants) but no deeper than its height. For more complete instructions on transplanting trees and shrubs request Information Sheet 965 from the county Extension office.

Now is the time to prune dormant, deciduous, and evergreen shade trees. Remember never to remove the central leader of a shade tree or you will ruin its natural shape. Spring-flowering trees like Bradford pear, flowering cherry, flowering peach, dogwood and redbud should only be pruned now to remove crossed branches, damaged or diseased wood and unwanted growth; otherwise, unneeded pruning of these trees will remove the already formed flower buds decreasing the floral display this spring.

Control scale on trees and shrubs by application of proper pesticides now. Contact the local Extension office or your favorite garden center for recommendations.

Vegetables and Herbs

Get those specialty, warm-season vegetable seed mail ordered now! January is the busiest month for most mail order seed businesses; so to get the selections you want, when you want, place your orders early.

I hope you had the good sense to plow and make rows in your garden spot last fall so you would have a ready place for "setting out" cool-season vegetable transplants in February. If we are having weather as usual your garden spot is probably too wet to work yet, but its time to put out cabbage, broccoli, onions, and other cool season veggies. If you are one of the smart ones and prepared your rows last fall, good for you. You can grin like a mule eating briars as you go right ahead and set out all those transplants on your nice, unmuddy rows, getting the jump on the rest of us slugs. If you are a member of the garden slug group (your vegetable garden is a wet tangle of dead tomato plants, cornstalks and thriving winter weeds) and know you will probably never be inclined to prepare your planting bed in the fall at a time when you are wore out with gardening anyway, admit it and make a plan now to construct a raised bed. It's a one-time effort. It will drain well and will be ready for planting early unless we have a Biblical flood in which case we need to be more concerned about swimming and boating skills.

Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes North Mississippi Gardening Tips monthly and is a Horticulture Specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is in the North Mississippi Research & Extension Center, Verona.