Rohde’s December Organic Gardening Calendar
First day of Winter (Winter Solstice): December 21, 2009; 11:47 am CST (Central Standard Time).
Daylight Savings Time begins Sunday March 14, 2010, 2:00 am.
Average Date of Last Spring Frost: March 15, 2010.
First day of Spring (Spring Equinox): March 20, 2010; 12:32 pm CDT (Central Daylight Time).
We are in USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 8a with an annual minimum temperature of 15 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit and in Texas AgriLife Extension District 4 (East Region) - North (Dallas).
Winter is coming! (December 21st), but it’s still an excellent time to plant. SO KEEP PLANTING STUFF!
Be sure you have your design made up though. If you need help, remember our landscape team of Sally and Samantha. They can help make your landscape the envy of the neighborhood, and now’s the time to prepare the beds and plant your perennials. Our landscaping crews can prepare the beds, and do the heavy planting if you don’t want to do it yourself.
December is also the time to wear yourself out shopping the malls for the Holidays. A hint I find useful, since I’m cheap, is that an unique gift can sometimes make up for an expensive gift and with the economy…, well you know, and Rohde’s has an large selection of very unique gift items acquired though much time and effort. Our buyer’s motivation is to find items you don’t see most other places. Our prices are also very reasonable, come see for yourself while the selection is good! See below for some store photos for ideas of what we carry. Besides the giftware, do think plants for gifts. A container garden of fall flowers or cool season herbs would be a wonderful gift. Think about sending a gift of a Rohde’s landscape plan for that someone special, or even someone not so special! It won’t bother us. We can do preliminary plans now and finalize them after you give the gift. You can include a bush or tree also, and, again, you can arrange for Rohde’s to do the work of planting and bed prep.
A well planned landscape is something you can enjoy now, but it also adds to the value of the property. It’s been said that an increase of 5 to 15 percent of the value of your home can be expected.
Vegetables
You can still plant Arugula, cabbage, chard, kale, lettuce, turnips, spinach, and other greens. You can also plant grape vines, blackberry plants, asparagus roots, and strawberries now.
Seeds: If you want to plant seeds, only carrots, mustard, radish and turnips are recommended.
If you’re growing asparagus, cut to the ground and mulch it.
Plant green manure, cover crops in empty, fallow flower and veggie beds and gardens. We carry “Dixie” Crimson Clover, “Hairy” Vetch, and “Elbon” Cereal Rye. Cover crops are used to protect the soil and microbes and “lockup” the nutrients to keep them from leaching away. Elbon (cereal) rye is a cover crop that can assist in controlling the root-knot nematode in the soil if it’s a problem. Legumes like clover and hairy vetch, also can supply nitrogen to the soil if there is a lack of it. Non-legume cover crops like cereal ryes, use an extensive root system to help break up the soil, leaving behind paths for air and water to get into the ground. A long tradition in organic gardening is to plant Hairy Vetch and Elbon Rye together in tomato gardens. Hairy Vetch is a climbing legume and uses the Elbon Rye to climb up on. This creates a denser stand of both crops. Before they go to seed in the spring, cut them down with hedge clippers or a weed eater and let them be the mulch you plant your tomatoes in.
Cold weather covers: If you have tender plants in your garden and would like to extend their lives, cover them with purchased crop covers, or use old sheets, blankets, tarps, or buy or make cold frames or “hoop” houses. With floating row covers (floating means just laying on the plants) you are looking for something that breathes if you have to use it for more than a night or so. This generally means no plastics. Plastics can be used on cold frames and hoop houses though if it doesn’t touch the plants. A sealed clear plastic cover, while letting sunlight in during the day, can make the inside colder than the night air. On clear, cloudless nights, radiant heat can be sucked into space from under the plastic and bring the temperature down to freezing even if the ambient air is above freezing. So let the plants breath.
Mulch: Add cedar, hardwood, or pine straw mulch to bedding areas & bare soil before freezes. Mulching doesn’t really keep the ground warmer over long periods, but helps insulate, slowing down temperature swings and letting the plants adjust easier.
Fertilize: Keep your cool season plants well fertilized. Strong plants can deal with freezing weather better. Also try using Green Sense Kelp Extract liquid fertilizer. Kelp contains many micronutrients that help plants make it through the winter in their best shape.
Water: Don’t forget to water if it doesn’t rain. It can be easy to over water now, since your landscape doesn’t dry out as fast, but it does dry out. Many plants go dormant when it drops below freezing, but if the ground is not frozen, a lot of plant roots still grow. Hydrated plants survive freezing weather much easier than dry plants, so check the ground moisture before freezes. You may notice that mother nature usually has rain leading the cold fronts that bring freezing temperatures.
If your plants do turn to toast from the freezes, be sure to remove the dead plants (and weeds too) for composting. Pest and Disease can over-winter in the dead material. This is also the reason to replace and compost your mulch at the end of the growing season.
Herbs
Plant cold hardy herbs; lavender, oregano, rosemary, rue, sage, thyme, parsley, cilantro, dill, and fennel. Dill and fennel may be less cold hardy. You may need to cover them during freezes.
You can plant herbs in your empty annual beds to give the beds life through the winter along with fresh ingredients for cooking.
Flowers
What to Plant?
You can still plant cold hardy annuals, such as Ornamental Kale, Flowering Cabbage, Pansies, Snapdragons, Dianthus, and Bluebonnet plants.
Now is the best time to plant all the perennials, so they are well established by spring.
Now's also the time to start planting bare-root rosebushes. Most mail order places will wait till about December to send them out in our Zone 8. You can also plant potted rose bushes, now or anytime. Raised beds will give better drainage in heavy clay soils. Don’t crowd bushes together as fungal diseases like the moist conditions contributed by decrease air circulation.
Bush Roses are pruned in mid-February, think St Valentines day. Spring-only blooming roses are cut back after spring flowering. Climbing Roses are pruned after they bloom too. Remove old stalks all the way to the ground.
If you are in sandy acid soils of East Texas or the Post Oak Woods of Denton County, you can plant Camellias now. If you live in black Clay soils you can plant them in pots.
Sow Seeds for Delphinium, Larkspur, Poppy now if you wish.
Fertilize
Apply water-soluble fertilizer to get newly planted annuals off to a good start. Green Sense Kelp Extract used with soil watering is an excellent root stimulator, and Green Sense Foliar Juice is perfect for spraying on the foliage.
Fertilize houseplants and greenhouse plants once during the winter with Rohde’s Green Sense Earthworm Castings.
Other Jobs
As with the vegetable garden, clean up weeds, dead plants, old mulch, and compost to control over-wintering pest and disease. Fertilize, water, mulch, and cover any perennials that may be damaged by freeze.
Create new planting areas for spring planting.
Again, don’t over water, but don’t forget to water. Stick your finger in the soil to be sure your plants need watering.
If your fall blooming perennials like lantana or salvias have finally frozen back, you can cut them down to the ground and plant other winter annual flowers or vegetables in with them for winter color. Or you can do nothing. The dead tops may provide protection to the underground parts of the plants. Also, pruning the plant could stimulate tender new growth if the plant hasn’t gone dormant yet. You can prune the dead parts in late winter or early spring before or when new growth normally appears.
Ornamental Grasses
You can still plant Ornamental Grasses. Rohde’s carries a large selection of varieties that do well here. They can work great with your fall-flowering perennials in your landscape, giving nice contrast with interesting seed heads and fall colors. During the winter they can enliven your sleeping yards with their distinctive shapes and graceful rustling foliage.
As an alternative to planting a few different kinds of grasses for variety, do a wall of one kind as a backdrop for other plants, ornaments, or landscape features. They can also screen unsightly views of neighbors, sheds, fences or section of your property.
Grasses are susceptible to crown rot, especially in winter. Most like well drained soils and sun. Cut back grasses to short clumps in early spring. You can divide clumps every three years or so as some will do better.
Bulbs
Finish your planting of spring-flowering bulbs such as tulips, hyacinths and daffodils.
Non-naturalizing bulbs will not return each year and must be re-planted. They are the classic Dutch tulip and Hyacinth, for example. Our winters are not cold enough nor long enough for these bulbs to bloom properly, so you must supplement their winter cold period. Bulbs require a particular cold spell, like fruit trees, in order to form their flower bud. You must put them in the refrigerator for about 45 days before planting or forcing. Plant them when soil temperatures can stay in the low 50’s for several days. This is usually in mid December.
Trees and Shrubs
Planting
This is still one of the best times to plant new trees, shrubs, and vines. Plants endure less drought and heat stress, and their roots have months to grow and become established before spring growth begins.
Come to Rohde’s if you're planning on buying trees and shrubs. Ask about our delivery, planting, and warranties. Don’t forget the soil amendments; Green Sense Kelp Extracts for root stimulation, Green Sense Mycor granules to inoculate the plant with mycorrhizae fungi, compost, and a variety of mulches.
Consider some rarely used trees this fall. Larger trees to consider; Montezuma Cypress, Cedar Elm, Lacey Oak, Chinkapin Oak, Texas Ash, or Bur Oak. Some smaller trees to look at; Texas Mountain-Laurel, Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum, Desert-Willow, Eve's Necklace, Goldenball Leadtree, or American Smoketree.
Hollies and nandinas are good for foundation plantings. They come in manageable heights and have a variety of different leaf shapes, colors, and styles.
Plant shrubs with winter berries or colorful foliage to brighten up the winter landscape. Hollies, Pyracanthas, Nandinas, Chinese Photinias, Mahonias, Purple Wintercreeper, Euonymus, Junipers, and Cleyeras are options.
Plant evergreens as an interest for deciduous plants or use as background or as a divider for your landscape.
Choose and prepare areas for planting fruit trees in January. Many fruit trees, berries, and grapes become available in bare root form in January. Common fruit trees are not native to black clay soils, so they need special treatment They have specific pruning requirements and pest controls for best growth and productivity. This should be planned for before planting using a planting and pruning guide for your trees. Rohde’s has books on growing fruit trees that will help you pick out and maintain your trees properly.
Pruning
Wait to do heavy pruning on trees and shrubs until the end of this month through to February when the plants are dormant. This is most important for Oaks trees that are susceptible to Oak Decline disease. This disease is carried by Sap Beetles that will come to the sap oozing out of the saw wounds. It is very important to apply Rohde’s Green Sense Tree Goop to the wounds immediately and to insure it stays on for 2 days till the wound’s sap hardens. Green Sense Tree Goop is a powder you mix with water to a paste. It contains rock phosphate and dairy manure for nutrients to help the wound heal quicker, and Diatomaceous Earth to help keep insects away from the wound.
When pruning, remove dead, damaged, troublesome, or diseased branches. You also can prune to shape trees and shrubs.
Most source suggest there is no need to pruning crape myrtles to remove the seed heads and most especially the severe for the practice of “topping” the tree where all of the branches are cut way back. Outside of dead branches or “in-the-way” branches, try not to prune anything any larger than pencil size. Wait till end of December through to February to prune. Early winter pruning could cause freeze damage to the tree.
Root-prune wisterias that have failed to bloom. It stresses the plant and stressed plants will sometimes try to produce progeny to continue their species if conditions for personal survival is sensed. Otherwise plant in good growing conditions may just try to get as big as they can before reproducing.
Do not prune knees from bald cypress trees – they are part of the root system. Instead change the root zone areas from grass to ground cover or mulch.
Reshape shrubs including summer flowering shrubs and vines with light pruning as needed, but do not prune spring-flowering shrubs or vines until after they bloom. Prune evergreen shrubs limb-by-limb to retain natural form instead of shearing to a ball or box shape.
Other Jobs
Transplant established landscape plants (trees, shrubs, etc) now that they are in their winter dormancy. Read November’s Calendar comments before attempting though.
Clean up fallen leaves, fruit, and nuts, old mulch, and other yard material, particularly around roses, and fruit and nut trees, that may harbor wintering pests and disease. Compost the yard litter well to destroy any pathogens. May need to shred the litter and subject it to solarization prior to composting. Solarization is commonly used to control weeds and pests in the soil prior to planting. Expose the well-moistened crop or yard residues, layered and sealed between two sheets of clear plastic, to several days of sunshine to kill pests and disease organisms.
Reapply any mulch taken up and add to old mulch to bring to a 3-inch layer. Keep the mulch from contacting the trunks or stems of the plants to prevent rot.
Do not throw any fallen leaves or grass clipping away. Either compost them or shred them with the lawn mower and use as mulch.
Remove mistletoe from tree limbs, while it is still young (less than one year old), even if it means removing the entire branch. There is no other control.
Apply thick layer of mulch around shrubs and perennials.
Lawn and Turf Grasses
Plant
You can plant grass sod anytime you can find it.
Plant ground covers and borders.
You can still plant cool-season grasses such as rye and fescue. They can compete with your warm season lawns in the late spring and early summer. The warm season grass will take longer to establish and may be less healthy or more disease and pest prone in the early summer. Perennial rye or Fescue grass can be used to quickly cover bare soils to protect from erosion though.
Fertilize
Your fall fertilizing was better done by November, but you can still derive benefits from doing it now with Green Sense All Purpose granulated lawn fertilizer.
Spray your lawn and landscape with Green Sense Kelp Extract or Rohde’s Liquid Foliar Juice which contains Kelp Extract. The Kelp’s potassium, minerals, and growth hormones help harden your plants for winter. For the same reason Kelp Extract is used for a root stimulant, it will increase root growth during the winter for better spring performance. A foliar spraying of Kelp also improves fall flowering and helps with disease and pest control.
Watering and Mowing
Don’t stop watering, but cut back to an inch every 2 weeks if it doesn’t rain. Better to water in the morning. Letting the grass go a little dry is better.
Water plants and turf before freezes. Hydrated plants are hardier, especially evergreen plants. Moist soil also holds more of the daytime warmth.
Pests, Disease and Weeds
Fallen leaves: Mow, rake, shred, compost, mulch beds. A few dry leaves blowing around your yard is no problem, but If you get a heavy fall of leaves on your yard, they can pack down when wet, cutting off air and holding moisture on your grass. In the wet, cool fall, this is a perfect place for fungus to grow. It can take hold and take out your grass underneath very quickly.
If you have an oak tree, you may have notice an unusually heavy acorn fall this year. This is good for forest creatures like deer (and deer hunters), bad for deer in your yard. We do carry “Not Tonight Deer” repellent. What conditions this year gave us the good acorn crop has also translated into a good pecan crop. If you don’t have a pecan tree, get one at Rohde’s.
General Pests and Diseases
Watch for pill bugs (sow bugs, rollie-pollies) eating seedlings and young transplants of winter and spring flowering annuals. For organic treatment for slugs, snails, and pill bugs, use diatomaceous earth, hot pepper and beneficial nematodes. Also cayenne pepper powder dusted can repeal them. A citrus oil spray can be used if there are a lot of them.
Scale, mealy bugs and other bugs can over winter on your trees or shrubs. Pecan and fruit trees, euonymus, camellias and holly are favorite hosts. Spray with a dormant vegetable based oil. Following product label directions avoid harming your plants.
Plastic cups sunk in the ground and filled with beer attract and drown slugs and snails.
Watch for spider mites, mealy bugs, scale and other insects on your house plants. Rohde’s has plant oil based sprays for tender houseplants.
Rohde’s carries “Precor”, an insect growth regulator, for treating your house for fleas. One ounce bottle will treat 1500 square feet. We also carry “food grade” diatomaceous earth for ticks, fleas, bed bugs, cockroaches, and many other indoor insects.
Other Things to Do this Month
Have landscape and garden soil tested now to know how to prepare your gardens and lawns for the spring. Rohde’s recommends “Texas Plant & Soil Lab” at 5115 West Monte Cristo Road, Edinburg, Texas 78541-8852, 956-383-0739. They can give you organic recommendations.
Don’t forget the wildlife. Rohde’s has a very good selection of bird feeders, bird houses, and bird baths. You can put out different feeders for different seeds, and suet, for particular birds, so the different species don’t have to compete with each other. You will get to watch the birds fly between the feeders checking out their favorites. Try squirrel feeders. It will keep them out of the bird feeders somewhat, and they can be very entertaining themselves. Bird bathes can be heated to keep them from freezing up, and they supply water for animals other than birds. Cats, squirrels, opossums, raccoons, insects will all use them. Keep them clean.
With most lawn and gardening chores at a minimum, now’s a good time to plan for next year:
- Send off for seed catalogs and place orders now for best selections and so you will have them for spring.
- Prepare old planting areas or create new planting areas for spring planting. Rohde’s has designers to help with your planning and crews to help with your preparations.
- Design and build a compost pile.
- Design, install or repair irrigation and/or drip systems while everything is dead.
- If you want to stay inside during the cold, read some books. Rohde’s has a great selection of fundamental books on plants, the organic methods, pest and diseases, and insects that apply to our area.
- And there are years and years of these past newletters to read too.
Most of this calendar is designed for Dallas, Tx in USDA Hardiness Zone 8a, with a predominant soil type of blackland prairie clay.