Weekly Garden Tip

January 1, 2006

By Gene Joyner, Extension Agent
Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service

Well another year has begun and hopefully this will be a better one than the last two years for our landscape. If you’re a person that makes New Year’s resolutions, hopefully one of those resolutions was to make sure your landscape is cared for a little bit better than in 2005.

Even though it’s in the middle of winter now, there’s still some things you can be doing in your landscape to get ready for the spring growing season. If you have any plants that have left over broken branches or areas that need to be removed, it’s OK to prune those out, especially dead branches to give landscapes a better appearance.

Also check mulch areas because many times winter weeds come in this time of year and can get a foothold quickly and offer quite a bit of competition to your flowers and shrubs. Mulches should be maintained at least 3 inches deep year round and for most people that means adding additional mulch at least once or twice a year to maintain that 3 inch depth.

Check landscapes regularly this time of year for watering, too. We’re in the middle of our dry season and the only rainfall we get is when our weekly cold fronts push through and sometimes drop a small amount of rain ahead of them.

If there’s not enough irrigation, plants and turfgrass areas might need additional irrigation, but don’t be guilty of overwatering either. Too much water creates conditions favorable for disease and excessive watering leaches out valuable nutrients in the soil requiring more frequent applications of fertilizer.

If you want some additional color in the landscape, this time of year most retail garden centers and nurseries have abundant selections of all types of bedding plants as well as perennial flowers. These can be planted now and should establish within a 2 to 4 week period.

If you have areas where you have permanent plants that aren’t doing well, try to check them and identify what the cause of the problem is so it can be corrected hopefully this time of year so when plants start their spring growth cycle there won’t be anything to hold them back.

Even though it’s cool insects can be present year round and often you can find buildups of scale insects, aphids, mealybugs, or have caterpillars and beetles that chew foliage show up in your garden.

As cold fronts come through the area it’s normal a few days afterward to see an increase in yellowed or discolored leaves, particularly the older leaves. This happens every year, but many people forget from one year to the next and when this happens they get all excited thinking their plants are dying, but it’s simply a reaction to the lowered temperatures and those yellowed leaves fall off and then are replaced later by fresh new leaves.

If you have questions about things happening this time of year that you don’t understand in the landscape, or think you have serious problems you need to discuss with someone, call the Palm Beach County Extension office for free advice. Dial 233-1750 in the north and central county area or 276-1260 in the south county area.