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Dig In: Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 5


Grapevines can be pruned between now and March 1. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

This weather is normal; make the most of it



Welcome to a typical January in Sacramento! It may seem cold and damp, but this is actually average weather for us.

Our January high temperatures average 54 degrees with lows dipping down just enough under 40 to average 39. Normal January weather also tends to be wet with 3.6 inches of rain.

January also can be the coldest month of the year in Sacramento gardens with our greatest chance of frost. Be prepared!

Make the most of soft ground. This is a great time to transplant dormant shrubs or perennials. In local nurseries, it’s bare-root season with their best selection of roses and fruit trees.

What should be on your to-do list?

* Prune, prune, prune. Then, prune some more. Tackle roses, grapevines and deciduous trees.

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

* 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.

Fight leaf curl in peach and nectarine trees by spraying with copper-based oil.
Be sure to remove any leaves and, as above, any "mummies" -- fruit that didn't
develop.
* This is also the time to spray a copper-based oil to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl.

* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.

* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.

* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.

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

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

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

* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladiolus for bloom from late spring into summer.

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Garden Checklist for week of June 8

Get out early to enjoy those nice mornings. There’s plenty to keep gardeners busy:

* Warm weather brings rapid growth in the vegetable garden, with tomatoes and squash enjoying the heat. Deep-water, then feed with a balanced fertilizer. Bone meal or rock phosphate can spur the bloom cycle and help set fruit.

* Generally, tomatoes need deep watering two to three times a week, but don’t let them dry out completely. Inconsistent soil moisture can encourage blossom-end rot.

* It’s not too late to transplant tomatoes, peppers or eggplant.

* From seed, plant corn, melons, pumpkins, radishes, squash and sunflowers.

* Plant basil to go with your tomatoes.

* Transplant summer annuals such as petunias, marigolds and zinnias.

* It’s also a good time to transplant perennial flowers including astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia, salvia and verbena.

* Feed camellias, azaleas and other acid-loving plants. Mulch to conserve moisture and reduce heat stress.

* Cut back Shasta daisies after flowering to encourage a second bloom in the fall.

* Trim off dead flowers from rose bushes to keep them blooming through the summer. Roses also benefit from deep watering and feeding now. A top dressing of aged compost will keep them happy. It feeds as well as keeps roots moist.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushier plants with many more flowers in September.

* Tie up vines and stake tall plants such as gladiolus and lilies. That gives their heavy flowers some support.

* Dig and divide crowded bulbs after the tops have died down.

* Feed summer flowers with a slow-release fertilizer.

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