January Gardening Tasks
Franklin Laemmlen, Ph.D., Master Gardener
Author’s Note:
January is a fairly quiet month in the garden. So far this winter the temperatures have been
cold. I have checked with a few
long-term (native) residents of
This is the time of year when you should be pruning fruit
trees, roses, and any other plants that require some severe pruning. Now is also the time to apply dormant sprays
to trees and shrubs. The dormant spray
should consist of dormant oil for insect control, and a copper fungicide or
calcium polysulfide for disease control.
If you have peaches or nectarines, the copper or calcium polysulfide is
especially important to prevent leaf curl disease. Use these fungicides and the oil according to
label directions and apply them to thoroughly wet all the twigs, branches and
trunk of the plant. If your plants have
scale infestations, the winter dormant oil spray is especially important. However, if you are going to spray evergreen
plants for insect control, do not use dormant oil, use instead a narrow range
“horticultural oil,” also called a “summer oil.” Horticultural oils are much less likely to
cause phytotoxicity to plants with foliage present.
If you plan to top dress your permanent flower beds with
manure or compost, the end of January and February is a good time. The spring rains can then wash some of the
nutrients into the surface layers of soil where new spring plant roots can
absorb the nutrients for spring growth.
Finally, if you have plants that are showing frost injury, do
not prune them now. Wait until
spring when new growth begins. Then you
will be able to trim the frozen wood back to living tissue and not destroy any
more of your injured tree or shrub than necessary.