Timing is Everything—Landscape Maintenance in January. Let The Light Shine In

People ask, “What should I do in my yard in January and February? Is it time to prune the shrubbery? What else should I do?” Here are some of the treatments that I provide for my clients this time of year. It also occurred to me that I am one of my clients, thanks to the suggestions of my sweet wife.

Many of our evergreen trees this time of the year have lots of brown spots     and begin to appear straggled. The trees and shrubs grow luxurious foliage in the summer which shades out the growth inside the plants. In the winter, a good thing to do is to prune the trees and trim out all of the brown and unsightly debris. Here is a picture of a cripsii cypress that has been carefully pruned and cleaned. Notice all the places where the light can shine in. The tree will begin to grow and fill in during the spring and summer.

Mid January to early February is the optimum time to prune boxwoods. The lateral buds in the boxwood are waiting to grow but the apical buds (those on the tips of the stems) need to be removed before new growth begins in the spring. To see how this actually works, read a short article titled “The Basics of Pruning that I wrote a number of years ago.

Pictured below is a prized boxwood belonging to one of my clients. He said, “That’s my pride and joy. I haven’t allowed anyone to touch it because no one seemed to know exactly how to do it.”

But I knew what to do—I’ve been doing it for over thirty years. It is a job to be performed by hand, with pruning shears. Power pruners should not be used on a nice plant like this.

Pruning took hours, but if you look at the plant in this picture you will see that it has retained the potential for its free-form shape but has also had the canopy of top growth lightened up to allow light to filter in and encourage inside growth and stem strengthening. Also notice that I am in the process of spreading lime which will help to neutralize the acid in the soil and make the plant more receptive to fertilizer in March.

As I write this article I have found a theme in winter duties—allowing the light to shine in.

Our next job was to trim the liriope (monkey grass) to remove last year’s growth and to allow the light to better reach the new growth in the spring. We have found that a weed eater does a most efficient job of this and that we can clean up with a rake and a blower. The liriope that remains after cutting should be about two inches high. It is also good to add lime to this plant in the winter.

Back at our home on Oakwood Street, my wife and I decided to tackle the dwarf yaupon hollies that are getting a bit overgrown. Again you will see that the canopy of leaves is not allowing the light to shine in. To quote Leonard Cohen, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

After talking about it, we decided to get a bit radical on these plants. I pruned them for light, growth, and shape instead of worrying about how they will look for the next six weeks. I have found that it doesn’t hurt at all to cut the hollies radically because they will grow right back and will look better than ever.

I hope this information helps. There are a couple of other articles that you may be interested in:

Deadheading and pruning hydranges in January
Prune and trim an overgrown bonsai tree

Thank you for visiting my site and if you like what you see, tell your friends. I started this site almost 9 years ago with the goal of answering questions that I found myself answering frequently. There are many articles on this site and you may find the search feature helpful. – John Schulz