January Gardening – Part One

January and the new year are imminent and with them come opportunities in the yard and garden. Admittedly, January can be a fairly slow month for gardeners due to the weather, but in reality there are a host of things to do on these often cool, rainy days.

January is a good time to prune crape myrtles and most all late spring or summer-flowering shrubs and trees. Do not prune early spring-blooming shrubs such as azaleas, redbud, quince, or dogwood until just after they have bloomed or before about July 1st, however, or you’ll lose many of the following year’s potential spring blossoms.

For crape myrtles, removing last year’s seed capsules now will encourage new growth and more flowers this summer. When pruning very young trees, cut off only the old flower clusters and unsightly stray branches. Restrained pruning is especially important with the newer varieties that produce larger clusters of flowers. If drastically pruned, the plant may be stimulated to produce too much new growth, causing breakage from the added weight. On older varieties with smaller flower heads, you may prune more severely. Cut these back a foot or more all around.

Correct pruning should be done primarily to maintain the growth and shape of a healthy plant. This is accomplished in several ways. First is the removal of all dead, diseased, weak, or injured wood. Second, crowded branches should be thinned to allow more light to enter the plant canopy for a more balanced plant shape. Branches that are growing inward, toward the center of the canopy, should also be removed for the same reason-to allow more light inside the canopy.

Make clean cuts with sharp tools, leaving no stubs to decay or to attract insects or diseases. If a plant has an upright growth habit, prune back to an outside bud (a bud facing to the outside, away from the canopy). This keeps the center of the plant open and gives new growth room to develop. Make all pruning cuts just above a healthy, well-developed bud.

Two basic pruning techniques should be used-thinning out and heading back. Heading back involves cutting the tip of each branch back to a bud. This stimulates branching by increasing the number of shoots, thus making a plant bushier. Thinning out involves removing some branches completely. For example, a twig is cut back to a lateral branch or a lateral branch is cut back to the main trunk. Thinning gives a very bushy plant a more open look and allows better air circulation, thus discouraging foliar diseases.

Be sure before pruning that every cut can be justified. Pruning simply for pruning’s sake is unwise and can actually weaken the plant.

January is also a good time to remove suckers from trees, shrubs, roses, and vines. A sucker is a shoot that arises from a root, from an underground portion of a stem, or from the rootstock portion of a grafted plant. They appear as vigorous branches at the base of a deciduous plant or, on evergreens, as leaves with a different color or shape from the rest of the leaves. Ornamentals such as flowering peach, flowering cherry, magnolia, and camellia are propagated commercially by budding or grafting; so, on these plants make sure the sucker growth that you are targeting for removal has emerged below the bud union so as not to disturb the legitimate growth located higher on the main stem. Most suckers can be snapped off or even rubbed off if you can catch them when they are young and tender.

Make new plantings of muscadine grapes this month and prune well established grape vines. Cut long canes back to three- to four-inch spurs from the main stem. New flowers and fruit will grow from these spurs-on new growth.

Prune clumps of pampas grass down to about 12 inches. Wearing gloves, pull out dead stems in the clump. Do not try to burn the clump.

Turn houseplants half way around now and each month to keep them from leaning too far in one direction.

Happy January gardening!

Tim Lewis is a Georgia Green Industry Association Certified Plant Professional, gardening writer, former Perry High School horticulture instructor, and former horticulturalist at Henderson Village and Houston Springs. He and his wife, Susan, own and operate Lewis Farms Nursery located on Hwy 26 two miles east of Elko, where he was born and raised. He can be reached at (478)954-1507 timlewis1@windstream.net.

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