Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Jan. 10

Free plants, just for the dividing! This Shasta daisy has outgrown its container and is ready to be divided and replanted. Many perennials benefit from periodic dividing. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Cloudy, cool and dry; that’s our forecast for the next week in Sacramento. In other words, it’s perfect winter gardening weather.

According to the National Weather Service, mornings may start out foggy, but afternoons will warm up into the mid 60s – 10 degrees above Sacramento’s January average high of 54.

By next weekend, we may even flirt with the 70s. Sacramento’s record high for January: 74 degrees.

So what are you waiting for?

* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.

* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.

* Prune most deciduous trees and shrubs while you can see their bare branches. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs and camellias.

* Prune most deciduous fruit trees. (The exception: apricots.) Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease.

* Apply horticultural oil to fruit trees soon after a rain to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.

* This is also the time to spray a copper-based oil to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl.

* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.

* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.

* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.

* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.

* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.

* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.

* Plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladiolus and other late spring-flowering bulbs.

* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.