- Author: Tammy Majcherek
One good, or obnoxious, thing about Southern California gardens, depending on your plant material, is that they really don't go dormant, they may just take a little "siesta" . Yes, the air and soil temperatures are cooler, and that warm season turf you planted in the early summer may have that yellow/brown cast to it, do not be fooled - there is still work to do in order to get you off to a good start for the New Year!
For those with cool season turf such as tall fescue, be sure to lower the mowing height on your lawn mower to approximately 2" and fertilize according to the recommendations for your particular variety at the UC Guide to Healthy Lawns website. If you have warm season turf, just sit back and relax after you take the mower in for a tune up.
The winter months are also a good time to clean and sharpen your tools - don't forget about that lawn mower. A sharp blade and finely tuned pruners or mowers will make a much cleaner cut helping to prevent an unhealthy wound when mowing turf or pruning your roses, evergreens, and late summer/fall blooming trees and shrubs.
Be sure to take a walk through the garden and check on plants that may generate from basal growth, they will need to be cut back as well. Remove old, dead or "leggy" material just above the new growth that is emerging from the base of the plant. (See the pictures below of a Mexican Hat Flower, Ratibida columnifera, growing in one of the demonstration landscapes at the UC ANR South Coast Research and Extension Center.)This will allow the new growth to take over creating a refreshed plant ready to produce beautiful Spring blooms.
Now is also a good time to sow seeds indoors for your spring garden - get a head start with onions, herbs, some tomato and peppers varieties, and various drought tolerant annual or perennial flowers. You may even be lucky while taking that stroll like we were, and find new plants coming up just waiting to be transplanted. Additionally, January is a good time to divide perennials and ornamental grasses.
Last but not least, if you do nothing else, and if you have not done so already, please turn off or adjust your irrigation schedule when there is rain in the upcoming weather forecast. There is nothing worse when it is raining than to see sprinklers watering someone's landscape with irrigation water running wildly down the street during a rain event. What a waste of such a precious resource and your hard earned money which you may as well just pour down the drain!
Happy Gardening in 2015!