Dig and prepare a
small plot for the early vegetables you'll plant in February.
Shrubs and Trees: Add scent to your landscape by planting one of
the great shrubs with seasonal fragrance such as winter daphne,
wintersweet and winter honeysuckle.
Look at camellias in bloom in garden centers to get the color and style
of bloom you like best.
Keep watering newly planted shrubs and trees even in winter when
rainfall is light.
Assess damage after winter storms. Look over your trees for broken
stems, branches and limbs. They could fall onto buildings, cars or people.
Remove what you can reach. Get a pro to do the high-up stuff.
Houseplants: If houseplants lean toward light unnaturally, give
them a half turn to make them straighten up.
Dust leaves or give them a gentle shower in the tub.
Increase the amount of fertilizer if foliage looks pale.
Perennials: Check autumn-planted perennials after stretches of very
cold weather. The plants may be dislodged or by freezing and thawing of
soil. Reset the plants if necessary.
Cut back pampas grass and other ornamental grasses as they start to
look weather-beaten.
Weeds: Dig up wild onions and wild garlic as they emerge. Get the
chickweed out before it blooms and sets seeds.
Fertilize: Fertilize daffodils as tips emerge from the ground with
3 pounds of 10-10-10 per 100 square feet of bulb bed.
FEBRUARY
Flowerbeds: Decide where you'll put a new flowerbed this year.
Start by outlining the area with your garden hose.
Tools and Equipment: Make sure your tools are clean, sharp and
ready for the busy season ahead.
Take the lawnmower to the shop while business is quiet.
Stock up on potting soil and fertilizer.
Start a collection of gallon-sized milk jugs. Washed, with the bottoms
cut off, they make cheap hot caps for young tomato and pepper plants if
cold weather threatens after you plant them this spring.
Houseplants: On mild days, when the weather stays above 60 degrees,
set houseplants outside, in the fresh, humid air, but not in direct sun.
Bring them indoors before dark.
Lawn: Fertilize fescue lawns late in the month at the rate directed
on the package.
Consider ground covers for areas of your lawn, such as slopes, where
grass remains impossible or difficult to grow well.
Mow the monkey grass with your lawn mower, the blade set at the highest
setting. If the liriope is too tall and thick to mow, use shears to cut
off all the old foliage to make way for fresh new growth.
Shrubs: Prune evergreens such as boxwood, red-tips, laurels, holly,
cleyera and ligustrum that don't produce showy blooms in spring. Finish by
the end of the month so that you don't cut off new growth.
Look over your landscape for overgrown, underperforming and
over-the-hill shrubs to replace with new ones.
Flowerbeds: Give your pansies a boost with liquid fertilizer.
Plant peonies, making sure the top of the crown, where the buds emerge,
is at or just above the soil line.
Shop for lilies, gladiolus, dahlias, tuberous begonias and other
summer-flowering bulbs to plant this spring.
MARCH
Flowerbeds: Dig, divide and replant clumps of chrysanthemums that
are growing vigorously.
Plant new ground covers and perennials.
Prune hybrid tea, grandiflora and floribunda roses.
Look over your flowerpots, hanging baskets and window boxes to make
sure they are in good condition for spring planting. Replace the soil with
fresh potting mix.
Lawn: Complete fertilizing of fescue lawns by mid-March.
Apply pre-emergent crabgrass prevention to the lawn before the dogwood
trees bloom.
Do some seeding in bare spots.
Houseplants: Take cuttings of houseplants to root and make new
plants.
Put houseplants outdoors on mild days. Bring them inside at night when
the temperature drops below 50 degrees.
Vegetables: Set out broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower plants. Sow
seeds of cool-weather peas.
Fertilize: Shrubs and perennial beds.
APRIL
Vegetables: Finish planting cool-weather vegetables such as beets,
cabbages and leaf lettuce by early April.
Begin sowing seeds of green beans, melons, corn, cucumbers, pumpkins
and squashes in mid-month. Set out tomato and pepper plants.
Flowers: Buy mandevillas, allamandas and hibiscus to plant in big
pots outdoors to make a colorful splash.
Plant summer flowers, including marigolds, impatiens and begonias,
after mid-April.
Plant warm-weather ornamentals that grow from bulbs and tubers,
including gladiolus, canna, dahlia and caladium late in the month, when
the weather gets warm.
Pinch tips of your chrysanthemums once they get about 6 inches tall.
Pinching every month or so until early July will produce better plants.
Houseplants: Move houseplants outdoors to a shady porch or spots
under the trees when the night temperature stays above 50 degrees.
Pests: Look out for slugs headed toward your leaf lettuce, pansies
and other tender plants. Catch them in traps or shallow pans of beer.
Make collars from strips of light cardboard or stiff paper about 9
inches long and about 4 inches wide. Staple the ends of the paper
together, or cut the bottom off paper cups. Set the collars 1 inch or more
into the soil at the base of young vegetable transplants to protect them
from cutworms.
Develop the practice of checking your vegetable plants every day and
pick off harmful insects while they are small in numbers.
MAY
Vegetables: Plant okra and lima bean seeds, and keep setting out
young vegetable plants, including tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers
and melons.
Put mulch on the vegetable garden, now that the soil is warm
Fertilizer: Fertilize rhododendrons with an acid fertilizer as
blooms fade, at the rate directed on the package. Prune spent flowers.
Flowerbeds: Sow seeds of zinnias, cleome, portulaca, cosmos and
morning glory directly in the garden for summer bloom.
Start practicing deadheading - the removal of spent blooms from annuals
and perennials. It makes the plants bloom longer.
Containers: Finish filling pots for steps and balconies with pentas,
geraniums, heliotrope, lantana and begonias.
Pests: Stay on the lookout for bagworms on evergreens, particularly
arborvitae and junipers; cut off the bags with scissors or knife and
discard in the trash.
JUNE
Flowerbeds: Pick off spent blooms of daylilies, taking care not to
disturb buds yet to open.
Rake away yellowed or brown daffodil foliage.
Sow seeds of quick-growing plants such as zinnias or cleome on the bare
ground.
Replace your pansies in beds and containers with fresh bedding plants
for the summer.
Check to see which perennials need lightweight stakes to keep them neat
and upright.
Prune and shape climbing and shrub roses after they finish blooming.
Container Gardens: Check outdoor hanging baskets and pots daily.
They'll probably need watering.
Vegetables: Pay close attention to harvesting vegetables at their
peak.
JULY
Flowerbeds: Give your flower beds a midsummer dose of fertilizer,
liquid or granular, at the rate directed on the package.
Keep your roses well-groomed, sprayed and watered to encourage fresh
growth.
Make a final pinching of chrysanthemums to induce compact, bushy
growth.
Shrubs: Prune mophead hydrangeas and gardenias as the early-summer
blooms fade.
Vegetables: Keep tomato plants evenly watered to avoid cracking
fruits, blossom-end rot and loss of plants that should produce for months.
Fruit: Cut off and replant runners of strawberry plants to expand
your collection.
Cut back blackberry canes after fruits are harvested to stimulate new
shoots and allow space for canes that will bear next year's crop.
Containers: Pinch back leggy shoots of begonias, coleus and
geraniums to create shapely plants.
Houseplants: Look for browning tips and edges of houseplants,
signals the plant is losing more water than the roots are taking in. Water
more often during these hot weeks.
AUGUST
Vegetables: Clear spent summer crops in your vegetable garden to
make space for fall vegetables.
Sow seeds of leaf lettuce, spinach, turnips, beets and radishes. Set
out plants of broccoli, collards and Brussels sprouts.
Houseplants: Stay vigilant against attacks of mealybugs, spider
mites and scale on houseplants.
Flowerbeds: Sow seeds of such hardy flowers as English daisies,
coneflowers, wallflowers and forget-me-nots in pots or trays, but protect
the seedlings from harsh sunlight.
Pests: In the evening, use a long stick to wrap up and remove nests
of fall webworms that you can reach in trees. This will remove some of the
caterpillars and expose others to predators, such as birds.
SEPTEMBER
Flowerbeds: Give flowerbeds, including roses, a late-summer
grooming in preparation for the fall show and addition of chrysanthemums
and pansies.
Remove spent annuals.
Houseplants: Repot in a larger container any that are rootbound.
This will give the plants time to grow new roots before they move indoors
for the winter.
Vegetables: Remain on the lookout for insects such as cutworms and
other caterpillars that go after cabbage, cauliflower and other fall
crops.
Keep sowing lettuce, spinach and other leafy greens.
Lawn: Aerate, overseed and fertilize your fescue lawn.
OCTOBER
Tropical plants: As trees shed their leaves, notice which windows
get the most sun. Put your tropicals that spend the winter indoors there
once night temperatures drop below 50 degrees.
Vegetables: Clear out all vegetable crops that have finished
producing.
Clean and store cages and stakes used with tomato plants.
Flowerbeds: Begin planting pansies, ornamental cabbage and kale and
hardy perennials.
Continue to clear away spent annuals. Let the good-looking ones stay
until frost gets them.
Dig, divide and replant crowded clumps of daylilies, Shasta daisies and
other perennials that bloom in spring and early summer.
Lawn: Mow the young grass that you planted in September when it
reaches 3 1/2 inches.
Rake the grass gently to remove the first of the leaves.
Start a compost bin with this fall's crop of leaves.
NOVEMBER
Trees and shrubs: Make this the month for setting out new ones.
Lawn: Keep those showers of leaves off your new grass by diligent
but gentle raking.
Fertilize fescue grass around Thanksgiving.
Flowerbeds: Sow seeds of poppies, larkspur and other hardy
wildflowers for bloom next spring and summer.
Plant pansies and snapdragons to ensure they get well established
before cold weather hits.
Plant tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and other spring-flowering bulbs.
Cut back flower stems and spent foliage of chrysanthemums and other
perennials to the base.
Cut off canna plants to just above ground level, especially if your
plants were infested by leafroller insects. Remove all the debris where
the dormant insect would spend the winter.
Containers: Plant paper-white narcissus bulbs in pots or bowls of
pebbles and water to enjoy in December. Grow them in a cool, but
frost-free place.
Weeds: Start to watch for chickweed, the bright green cool-weather
weed that sprouts about mid-autumn. Pull it up before it goes to seed and
produces a new crop.
Houseplants: Make sure all tropical houseplants are indoors for the
winter.
Spray houseplants, particularly ferns, with a gentle mist twice a week
to keep up humidity once the furnace is running.
Begin diluting your house-plant fertilizer to half-strength. Plant
growth slows as days shorten in late autumn.
DECEMBER
Flowers: Keep your poinsettia, Christmas cactus and other holiday
plants in a bright but cool spot away from heat sources.
Give your potted amaryllis a quarter turn each week to keep the stem
growing straight. Kept in the same position in a window, the stems bend
toward light.
Get those spring bulbs planted, either in the ground or in pots you can
leave outdoors for the winter.
Cut back tall roses, hybrid teas and grandifloras to about 4 feet in
early December.
Lawn: Keep those wet leaves off your grass. Matted, wet leaves will
kill those precious blades this winter.