Here’s some of the tasks to focus on:

1. Soil health

Plants go dormant during the winter, meaning they don’t grow at the foliage level. But within the soil, the roots are drinking up all that rain water and strengthen so it’s important to aerate the soil, making sure the water can be absorbed.  Amending with a little dark compost will help feed the roots and spreading a few inches of mulch around the soil will keep down weeds and preserve moisture.  Be sure to remove fallen leaves and any dirt or mulch off the base of shrubs and trees.  Soggy leaves around the wood causes mold to grow, compromising the plant’s health.

2. Tree pruning

This is your chance to prune everything that is deciduous.  A tree is much happier being heavily pruned when it’s dormant.  It will not react with weird aggressive growth or sticky saps that some trees leak out when pruned at the wrong time of the year. Again, feed the soil with compost and gently aerate.

3. Lawn maintenance

(this is a photo of a dethatching rake, available at most hardware stores)

Aerate and dethatch lawns so they can form new growth and spread once spring comes.  Thatch (dead grass) prevents new growth in lawns by forming a thick barrier.

4. Repair everything

From the irrigation system, to the rotted retaining wall, this is the time to build, repair and do all the hardscape and erosion control projects as long as the weather permits.  It’s not a great time to stain or paint because of rain and cold, but that can happen in the spring.  Now is a great time to build a fence and wall, hang a gate and do any general repair you’ve been putting off.

5. Clear the gutters

This is important to do about twice annually to assure a good flow of water through your gutters and away from your house and foundation.  While you’re up there, you may also hang or remove Christmas lights.

6. Plant bare root

Many fruit trees and roses will be sold “bare root” in January in a dormant state.  It will require a bit of skill to properly plant but it’s the healthiest way to plant these particular items and they are often sold cheaper this way.

Cornus (Dogwood tree and shrub)

Dogwoods are exciting and so lovely.  Their leaves turn a beautiful red in the autumn, the bark on the shrub varieties then glow red all winter and many trees fill with flowers in the late winter before new leaves form.  They give so much color and beauty at a time that often feels dormant.

Acer Palmatum ‘Sango Kaku’ (Japanese maple)

This is another tree that gives bright autumn color and then its bark glows red all winter.  It’s a great tree to practice pruning on in the winter.  It’s bare limbs resemble veins in a leaf.  I have a new one in my front yard this year.  I placed an accent light shining up into it and the sinewy structure reflects at night onto our house adding a lot of interest and beauty.

Magnolia

Here’s another tree that gives brilliant autumn color on the leaves and then in the late winter, the bare branches fill with amazing flowers. There are evergreen magnolias, but I’m referring specifically to the deciduous varieties.  There are some varieties that remain fairly vertical that are great for the residencial landscape.

Persimmon

These trees are totally exquisite in the autumn and give back a wonderful fruit that we enjoy here in the Bay Area.  While in Japan during the harvest season, I saw them hanging everywhere to dry.

 There are two types of persimmon fruit, fuyu and hachiya.  This a fuyu here on the left.  They are round, sort like an apple and are eaten raw while still hard.

 Hachiya, here on the right, is more oval shaped and best used when soft and cooked.  If you’ve ever mistakenly bit into a raw hachiya, it may have been like licking a chalkboard, not fun!  But cooked into breads and puddings at the holidays, it’s a great alternative to squash.

Here are some questions I get asked most this time of year:

“Is this tree dying or just losing it’s leaves?”

If a plant, shrub or tree is “deciduous,” it will drop most or all of its leaves by the end of winter and grow new ones in the spring.  If it holds onto its leaves year after year, it’s called “evergreen.”  People fear that when the leaves begin to brown and dry, the plant is dying.  If that is happening now, it probably means it is deciduous.   This type of plant and tree provides the most beautiful color in the fall, structure to admire in the winter and fruit to eat in the summer.

Many people don’t like the messy factor with fallen leaves, but consider that evergreen plants don’t give much back with regards to color and fruit.

“Can I still plant now?

Ideally no, not until the spring.  It’s too cold at night and there’s barely enough heat and light for a new plant to root into the ground.  They may freeze or just get mushy and die.

“Can the irrigation system be shut off now?”

Probably.  If the system has been on regularly up til now, the ground is plenty wet and can be shut off.  Keep an eye out for plants that are sheltered from rain water, they may need additional watering.

People tend to overwater this time of year.  Unless it’s a newly planted landscape or you’re in a particularly hot area, here in the coastal regions of the East Bay and SF, the plants are going dormant.  Overwatering now causes problems such as mold, ants, weeds and swampy conditions that breed flies and mosquitoes, not to mention it’s a waste of water use.

“Why can the system be shut off and the plants won’t die?”

Remember learning about photosynthesis in jr high school?  It is helpful in understanding the transition in the garden this time of year.  Because there is less light now, plants hibernate or go dormant to minimize energy consumption until the spring when more light is available.  They probably won’t root or grow until the spring.  Also, this lack of light reduces the heat on the ground so the soil doesn’t dry out as fast as other times of the year (especially if there’s a layer of mulch or compost).

Remove some of that lawn now that the kids are grown and plant a butterfly habitat

Build an outdoor kitchen

Turn that slope into a usable patio with simple flagstone and thyme

Plant a small vineyard and follow the harvest schedule of local wineries

Plant a small and manageable but productive edible garden

It’s usually best to water in the early morning (between 4-6am) for a few reasons.  The first is watering at night can cause a powdery mildew to grow on the wet foliage and flowers that would be avoided if watering takes place in the early morning.

Secondly, the wind tends to be the least in the early morning, so with regards to sprinklerspray, more water gets on the ground rather than dissipates into the air.

And thirdly, foliage-munching snails and slugs tend to be nocturnal and need moisture to move around so if the environment is kept dry at night, that means less pest activity on the plants.

On the other hand, here’s a couple of reasons why the watering would need to take place at another time other than the early morning: if your irrigation valves wake people up when they go off and on and if they reduce the shower pressure.  If this is the case, you would want to schedule the watering at a convenient time for your household.

Generally, they don’t like plants with a strong odor like lavender or rosemary.

However, this strong odor rule doesn’t apply to roses, as deer will devour roses, thorns and all.

Deer seem to stay away from grasses and plants with spikey foliage like Phormiums. Here’s a few photos of grasses and spikey plants we have used with success in sunny deer territory.  I’ll post later about deer resistant plants for the shade.

Calamagrosits foliosa

Phormium (aka New Zealand Flax)- this plant comes in many colors

Carex divulsa (aka Berkeley sedge)

Carex Testacea

If your fruit are not fully mature like in this photo, you would ideally prune half the fruit off a limb to promote the half remaining.  It’s the same idea with rose pruning.  If you know every fruit on your tree is always perfect, there’s no need to do this, only if you have had some disappointing years.

The second thing to do is pick the fruit as they become ripe or before and let them ripen off the tree.  I like using a combination of a ladder and this fruit picker, available at most garden centers.  It’s grips fairly well, the trick is to figure out how to just pick the fruit and not tear the thin limb it’s hanging from.