January in your Garden
Hello,
May I start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year.
The following gardening thoughts assume that your garden is not waterlogged or frozen!
Gardening when the ground is very wet will possibly do more harm than good, maybe spend some time looking through the many seed and plant catalogues that drop through letter boxes at this time of year. Try not to walk across waterlogged or frosted lawns as you either compact the soil or kill the grass.
Hence if it is dry enough to set foot outside……
Beds and borders will benefit from a layer of muck, and it is good post-Christmas exercise to wheelbarrow manure around the garden and leave it in a layer over the vegetable and flower beds. The worms and the frost will slowly break it down and you can give it a final once over in spring.
If you left herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses standing for their winter structure many will look limp or straggly by now and it is a good idea to clear any tatty or diseased stems and compost them. Large ornamental grasses can be cut back, lifted and divided at this time of year.
It is not too late to finish pruning apple and pear trees or, if you have already had one shot at it, take another look to see if you have achieved the best shape that you can.
Stone fruit must NOT BE PRUNED NOW. A good way of remembering this is that pretty much all stone fruit start with the Latin name ‘Prunus’ (cherries, plums, damsons, mirabelles, apricots, peaches, nectarines etc). Until they start into growth just imagine them saying "No Prune Us".
Spraying peach and nectarine trees against ‘peach leaf curl’ can be carried out in January if the weather is fair, spray with a copper compound like Bordeaux mixture a couple of times between mid-winter and mid-spring. Do not spray once the flower buds begin to open.
All pruning advice assumes the work is done on a day when the temperature is well above freezing. Ideally you want to leave about 48 hours between pruning and a frost to stop tissue damage.
Late January is a good time to start to give your established fruit trees a treat (leave newly planted trees alone for the first couple of years). Use an organic fertiliser like blood, bone and fish or seaweed meal because they release their nutrients more slowly than chemical fertilisers and you want to keep the tree healthy and not engender a sudden growth spurt that will produce soft growth that may be damaged by later cold weather. Apply the fertiliser under the mulch around the trees, water it in and then replace the mulch around the trees
Winds will loosen the roots of anything that has been recently planted. When the weather has calmed down, on a mild day, check to make sure newly planted hedging has not been affected. If it has, tread the soil back round the roots gently but firmly. This advice applies equally to fruit and ornamental trees, roses and soft fruit.
It’s time for winter storms: Check that stakes are firm, and ties are not broken and not too tight. Firm in roots that have neem loosened in the gales. And cast a weather eye up to branches of larger, older trees. High winds break branches and a good limb from a mature beech can weigh a couple of tons. Cut back any damaged wood (or book your tree surgeon) and warn family and visitors of any trees that look in any way dangerous which you wait for them to be sorted out.
This is prime rose planting time, with bare root roses now available.
Check that any climbing roses are still tied into their support structures.
If you have not already, you’re really need to cut bush roses back to reduce their height so that they are less likely to suffer from wind rock. Not only does this make the roots unstable but you can end up with compacted soil around the main stem of the rose where water then collects and causes rot.
Rhubarb crowns can be planted up to the middle of February. You can also start forcing established rhubarb this month.
Raspberries are incredibly shallow rooted. You should never, ever, walk close to your raspberry canes as you damage the roots. They may recover in summer (although your crop will be affected) but if the ground is frosted or frozen, you simply break them and kill the plants. Much better to hand weed around them in spring and for now just spread a good layer of straw around the plants to protect them.
Prune wisteria. The main framework of large stems will have grown sideshoots that should have been reduced in length around midsummer. These same side shoots should now be cut back to 2-3 buds so that you encourage the production of more flower buds. When people say their wisteria never flowers it is usually because they did not prune around this time.
Ivies, climbing hydrangeas, Virginia creeper are all marvellous at prettifying walls but they will also invade window frames, gutters and doors so cut them back away from anywhere where they may cause (expensive!) damage.
If you have not already cut your large, flowered clematis back hard, then now is time. Leave your Montana’s alone though as you will be removing flower buds. Leave hydrangeas for a month or so yet.
Weeding borders now reduces weeding in spring many times over.
Enjoy your snow drops – make a special effort to go and find the first ones popping up.
This is the time to be ordering bulbs in the green, by the time they arrive you will be able to see exactly where to plant them as the other spring flowering bulbs will be above ground. A great way of filling in gaps.
If it is dry enough weed and tidy the borders, and trim the grass edging, in any area where you have planted your spring bulbs so that they look good when they finally emerge. Use a kneeler to spread your weight so that you don’t damage the shoots or compact the grass.
January always feels like the longest and coldest month so cheer yourself up by choosing summer flowering bulbs like alliums, gladioli, scented freesias, bearded irises and sword-like crocosmia. Order them now ready to plant in spring.
Bulbs that you have forced for indoor use – paper whites, hyacinths – and that are over, can be put outside somewhere light. Cut off the flower heads to prevent the plant trying to use energy to make seeds. Feed it with a high potash feed and let the foliage fade. In spring you can then plant the bulbs in the garden. Generally, it is so exhausting for bulbs to have been forced that they will not repeat the process indoors, but given a year's rest, they will happily flower outside again in years to come.
Olive and Bay - Keep an eye on the thermometer and if it begins to plummet then, if possible, move your pots with bay trees to a frost-free place or wrap them well with horticultural fleece/hessian/straw and polythene. In a sheltered spot, out of the wind ours seem to tolerate temperatures down to about -10C. If either your bay or olive tree are under the eaves, make sure that they are watered just enough to stop their compost completely drying out.
Carry on feeding the birds. January and February are the toughest months for wildlife in the garden. Water is also incredibly welcome when it is freezing.
If you have a pond pump that is at risk in the frost, then protect it. And make sure your pond does not freeze over completely if possible.
If you haven’t already serviced your lawn mower, now is a good time to do it before the spring rush.
Go through your garden shed and sort out the garden implements. January is the best decluttering/oiling/sharpening month...
With not much else going on in the garden and foliage at a minimum, make a date with the fence or trellis that you have been meaning to repair since last year.
If all else fails….go back indoors and have another nice cup of tea.
I wish you Happy Gardening in 2025.
Rog
English Cottage Chic Gardening
The writer, Rog Leppard, is a professional gardener and garden writer based in Ashurst Bridge.