Winter garden work
If your garden is buried under snow and you’re snuggled by the fire with your laptop and seed catalogs, you may be happy to rest for a season until spring arrives. But here in Austin, winter means you can garden most days in comfort with only a light jacket, sans mosquitoes, bug spray, sweat, and risk of heat stroke. Aside from cedar fever (an aggravating allergic reaction caused by Ashe juniper pollen from late December until mid-February), this is a marvelous time of year to be outdoors. Blue skies, cool air, rain-softened soil—what more could you ask for after a long, hot summer?
At this time of year, I often start work on hardscaping projects or making new beds. In my excitement I tend to get carried away and begin more projects than I can actually finish before summer. This winter, since early December, I’ve:
1. Started work on my first planting bed in the front yard. Normally I’m a do-it-yourself kind of gal, but I did hire two guys to dig out the Asian jasmine, star jasmine, nandina, and thorny weeds in the large island bed by the street (hemmed in by our circular driveway). Let me tell you, that was money well spent, as it took them 4 hours with shovels and pickaxes to get it out. They did the main job, but I still need to dig out some pieces they missed. Then I’ll bring in some soil, make some access paths through the bed, and start planting a deer-resistant, mostly shady garden. My goal is to get the plants in the ground by mid-March, to give them time to get established before summer returns.
2. Removed the shutters from the front windows and repainted the trim, pulled off the fake mullions and recaulked the aging windows, and added new potted plants to the front stoop. I still need to paint the entry porch siding and front door. Bigger changes to the entry, discussed on this post about redesigning the front of my house, will have to wait for now.
3. Spent this week cutting back overgrown shrubs in the lower garden, pulling out invasive and thorny pyracantha, and trimming some branches from the numerous trees on our lot. I’m planning to replant the fence line of this area with a mix of shrubs and small trees with light, dark, and variegated foliage. I want to get those in the ground this month.
4. Made plans to take out the sloping grass path in the new side-yard garden and replace it with landscape timbers and gravel. I need to start ripping up that grass, and soon! If possible (time and money), I’ll do the same thing on the other side of the garden this winter.
5. Sketched a design for three 2×2 horizontal-slat screens I need to build to hide some uglies in the garden. I hope to start work on these as soon as the kids are back in school.
6. Been musing about painting my cedar Adirondacks. I’ve enjoyed their gray patina for many years, but I think I’m ready for some color on those chairs. While I’m at it, I need to repaint several peeling metal benches. This is last on the list, as it can be accomplished in the shade of the garage if I don’t get it done before summer.
Cool-season garden work is more fun when you have winter-blooming plants like abutilon (pictured at top) strutting their stuff. It looks great in front of a blue-green softleaf yucca (Y. recurvifolia), but I won’t be planting my new pink abutilon next to it. The abutilon will need midday and afternoon shade to look its best and survive our summers.
Winter blues, but only the good kind! Wheeler’s sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri), native to west Texas, looks beautiful no matter the season. How I wish I had enough sunny beds for half a dozen.
If you live in a warm climate, what kind of gardening are you doing right now? If in a cold climate, what changes are you dreaming about making in the spring?
All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Hot. Watering after 5 pm. Afternoon in the shade blogging. And in March we will go ahead with our projects.
Wow Pam, you have been a go getter! All of your efforts sound smart, but especially hiring out the cleanup in the front. I am always amazed at the speed and efficiency of strong men working diligently. We have had company for nearly a month so little has been done in any endeavor, but yesterday the quadrants in the knot garden were mulched with pea gravel to deter squirrels digging up the bulbs. Pea gravel is heavy and that garden is at the top of the property, poor Financier carrying up the many bags. The creeping thymes should have no problem growing through the light stone covering, I hope.
This winter so far I’ve put all the seed catalogs in a nice stack and I’m going to start reading them in the next day or so. It is currently 8 F and the ground is frozen now so I couldn’t even go out and pull weeds if I wanted to.
Yikes! Cedar! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been miserable these last few days from Cedar Fever.
Right now I’m envying your weather! 15 degrees this morning and a predicted high around 30 tells me I’ll be indoors most of the day! If the weather was normal here in TN today (mid 40’s) I would be out working on my greenhouse.
Enjoyed your post…makes me motivated to get moving! You have a lot going on in your landscaping. I definitely put my abutilon in the wrong place and will have to move it so it gets shade in the afternoon. I am curious to see what your slat screens look like…i have some things I need to hide. I’m sure your new landscaping will look wonderful with your signature on it! I look forward to seeing it 🙂
Very inspiring, Pam! I need to get after some of those chores that won’t seem so appealing when the heat sets in. This weekend I need to rake– the sycamores keep me plenty busy in winter.
Busy little bee. Way too cold in the eastern part of the south to do much of anything. I’m on my way out to the greenhouse, dreaming of the warm days and humidity returning soon. It is supposed to be 20 degrees tonight, yuck!!!!
Gosh! You have done more in the last few weeks than I have done in a year. You must be deriving a great deal of satisfaction from all the hard work and improvements. As for my garden- abandoned until the end of Jan. but I couldn’t help picking up a delightful cactus garden bowl yesterday and i ordered my summer seeds on line.
Hi Pam
Outside the windows we hawe -12 and al lot of snow, just like it should.
Inside we have light up in the fireplace and just have a nice and relaxing time.
We wish you a Happy New Year.
Ken&Carina
We finally saw the sun yesterday and so I heaped up more pine straw around the plants I put out recently. They’re predicting a week’s worth of below 30 degree nights so it seemed appropriate. I’ve also staked out an enlargement to a garden bed but actually digging it out may have to wait til spring with all the rain we’ve had! Today a friend is coming by to relieve me of my Fairy rose. Tomorrow I hope to trim out some large branches in my old crape myrtle, with my hubby’s help. But I do wish I could get done as much as you have gotten done lately!
It always amuses me to read blogs like yours where the writer is living in a completely different climate to mine. I spent an hour in the garden today, completely wrapped up andwas still frozen. All I managed to do was to clear away fallen leaves to reveal bulbs which should be in flower in a month or two.
Hello Pam,
With a similar climate to yours, I found myself outside yesterday soaking up the warmth of the sun as I took photos of my Agave pups. I am gearing up for planting some roses in about a week. January is probably my slowest month in the garden. BTW, I find it interesting how many of the same plants we grow are called by different common names? It makes me glad I stuck with learning botanical names in school. It is so helpful when people, like you, put the botanical names as well as the common names on your blog 😀
Need some help? I could relish a good day of outside gardening about now. Snowing as I type and your list has inspired me to go lie on the couch for a bit and relax. Very ambitious and I’ll bet you will accomplish even more than what is on that list.
Wow…you’ve been busy. Looking forward to seeing photos of all your hard work.
In the mean time, maybe I should get working on those beds I want made. Those garden elves never showed up here.
Happy gardening.
I haven’t even had time to think up my list but it is also extensive. I’ve been visiting my best friend in Houston and helping her clean up her garden and pot up plants she wants to move to her new house in Galveston. We’ve put in about 20 hours each in the last three days and I’m going home with enough plants to keep me busy a few days as I am still building beds in my new Dripping Springs garden. Then I need to get 30 trees in the ground before March, start my early tomatoes immediately as well as brocoli and lettuce. I’m hoping to get my garden in a state where someone else can keep it watered and pick the vegetables by the end of June.
But I too love winter gardening and almost can’t stand to do anything else in February and March.
Pam, I’m going to have some questions for you in the next few days (once I get some drainage work done) about plants that will work in a narrow rock garden near my house in College Station… right now, most of my gardening is heavy lifting!
You are a dynamo! I am trying to get stuff done, but I get very distracted – right now my aloes are sending up their winter bloomspikes, so when I see a new one, I drop whatever it is I’m doing and run around the garden, giddy and squealing. I need a dose of your focus!
I agree with Frances – it was smart to hire out the rough work of digging out your front beds. I hired guys to empty my veg beds and line the bottoms w/ chicken wire (should have done that at the beginning – live and learn!) and I don’t regret not doing it myself – it was 9 hours of backbreaking work!
What I HAVE done myself was create a new monochromatic bed that features an Acacia baileyana purpurea. The soil is covered by black/purple polished pebbles in different sizes, and I’ve planted about 12 Aloe ‘Blue Elf’ among the rocks, along with 5 Euphorbia ‘Stix on Fire’ for hard contrast. The goal is for it to look dark and underwatery … I’m contemplating adding a few Echeveria ‘Metallic’.
I love this time of year! We have to remember this when we are cowering in the heat of August! Thanks for the great post!
XOXO!
Wow, I’m feeling lazy, but excited about all your work. I love it when other people are working and I can just see what they’re up to!
I will say that a few years ago we removed the mullions from the front windows, too, and that does help, until we can do what we REALLY want! Thanks for the inspiration to get in gear. Linda
I must confess. I haven’t been thinking about my garden much through the holidays. We just finished the last of the Christmas Bird Counts that I commited to working. Speaking of work, I have to work all week next week. Proably next month I will be able to think about the garden. At least as in changes. Just reading your list about wore me out. I know everything will be gorgeous when you are finished.
We are much the same here. Fall is the best time to plant in Southern CA though. Winter can be unpredictable, today was in the low 70’s, we could be 40 next week & have had 90 in Feb. We have had several Christmas’s when the kids were in shorts & t-shirts out riding bikes, scooters or rollerblades! The up’s & down’s are confusing to more than the plants!
I’ll probably do a list and post it on my blog, but I have been very busy. Pruning, removing the last of the leaves, weeding, transplanting, fiddling with seedlings…I’m just glad I had the holidays off so I could do all this stuff.
Wow! You have enough energy for the whole neighborhood. If you get bored, I’ve got a load of pruning and composting and mulching to do here.
You’ll have fun making a shade garden in front.
Your note about replanting the fence border reminded me, I’m looking for a place to put pomegranates. Deer resistant, full sun, drought-tolerant, the most exuberant red blooms and attractive to birds. Plus fruit! Now if I can only find a place where I can dig a hole…
Wow, I envy the time you have. Can’t wait to see the finished results of everything on your list.
I’ve been off the last two weeks and go back to work on Monday, but in regard to the garden I’ve:
-Pulled 12 feet of dead passion vine off of my fence,
-Trimmed the foliage from several dormant plants,
-Planted one baby cypress in a pot. (A cypress that won’t survive here in the ground.)
– Turned two large compost piles and distributed a third. (Had to battle with fire ants.)
-Covered & uncovered plants during the freezes.
-Put up two tongue-in-cheek garden signs.
-Spent two days scraping 1/4″ layer of paint off an old/small wrought iron gate to put up in the veggie area.
-Capped the cinder block sides of my veggie garden with stone-looking concrete blocks to give them a better appearance.
-Bought a HUGE pot at the Great Outdoors’ 1/2 price sale to put my water reed in. (He’s in a metal wash tub.)
Still to do: Buy/plant a persimmon. Dig up a baby rusty blackhaw viburnum. Hang another garden sign. Turn more compost. Meet with someone to trim my oaks.
Tomorrow, I’ll clean the potting shed, scrape more paint from the gate and then (sadly) I’ll go back to work.
We’ve had a cyclone system come right across the country, giving us all some rain. I planted some seedlings just before it arrived and have eaten my first garden tomato. Bagged my quinces against fruit fly one very humid morning. Apart from that, lots of visiting and being visited, as it’s our summer holidays. Tomorrow: a bushwalk in Sydney Harbour National Park.
I’ve finally got the hardscaping done on our new garden, and am ready to put down some thin cardboard weed-blocking material we found, and haul in some good soil/compost/? to amend the beds (the contractor just filled them with whatever soil they could scrape up from this limestone hill we are sitting on). What do you fill your beds with, and where do you get it? Natural Gardener?
Becky, I generally use Hill Country Garden Mix from Natural Gardener. I really love it and so do the plants. But it is pricey. Good luck, and happy new year! —Pam
Nice Dasylirion pic! I’ll enjoy our 10+ Dasys in all our sun for you and the other hundreds I put into my designs out here, while you get to garden…our 1 day of average 50-ish weather is gone for yet another week of persistent colder than avg…not my thing @ 40F. But mtn biking still fine!
A huge arctic cold front came in and settled over us…plus surgery has put plans for gardening on hold…But, I think about it and do have a few plans in mind for when the hand cooperates again. In the meantime, I am loving reading about any garden activity in zone 8 and warmer climates! Regarding painting your chairs~~I found that staining mine was an easier task then painting them. Plus no peeling paint in the future. Have fun Pam! Happiest New year to you. gail
Good point, Gail. I think I will try a solid-color stain on those raw chairs. Happy new year to you too! —Pam
Pam – you have been so busy! Can’t wait to see those screens you plan to make.
I’ve been house-bound to get well and have done nothing outside for a month now and I’m missing my garden. I got my son to remove my poor container plantings from the front porch today as the plants finally succumbed to the low temps.
If you like colorful Adirondacks, take a look at the photo that I posted today of bright color chairs among flowers.
Cheers,
Cameron
You managed all this and the holidays too? I’m exhausted thinking about it. I’m feeling like a winter blob at the moment and trying to think positive thoughts about all the tree and shrub damage that we will likely be dealing with come spring. Listening to you, I can see I need to get off my but and pull out last summer’s notes!
Yes I’m sitting by the computer, garden is full of snow, artic air from Canada prevents much outdoor activity, but no, I’m not happy to be resting inside. Sounds like you could use a “partner in grime ” 🙂
Oh to be outside and doing the things you’re doing. The older I get the more I want to move South again.
The only good thing I can think of about winter is that it forces me to paint to keep my sanity. And, my house has never been so clean.
Happy New Year, Pam.
Pam, you are doing great! I guess you get to sit back in the heat of summer while we northerners are outdoors working hard? I can’t wait to see pictures of all your progress. I was going to say about painting the chairs ~ be prepared to sand and repaint yearly (I made that mistake) but then I saw Gails comment and just learned something myself! I’m so excited. I will be looking for stain this spring along with you (or after you). Good luck whittling that list down.