I want to start off with the labor intensive rose bushes. They are as needy as they are beautiful but so worth it. February is heart disease awareness month, as well as black history month and it's the month of the lovers holiday, Valentines day. There is so much to be celebrated during this month I want to give a little more attention to the beautiful flowering woody perennials with the Rosa genus, the rose. If you do not have roses you can skip down to the paragraph that starts off with FERTILIZE.
ROSES: Typically we advise cutting roses back twice a year, once in August and once in February. I've heard it said to cut your roses back on Valentines Day but any day this month is sufficient. You'll want to cut out any dead canes and on the dormant healthy canes make your cuts a quarter inch above an existing bud. You can not mess this up, some literature reads "make a 45 degree cut.....blah blah blah" I'm hear to tell you it will survive if your cut is not at 45 degrees. Roses are so forgiving and can be cut back as far as 12 to 18 inches and not only live but thrive and grow into beautifully shaped bushes. If you know your bush or other plants in your yard for that matter, is susceptible to fungus or mildew a preventative spray regimen of alternating fungicides is a good idea. An alternating fungicide spray regimen would be using a horticultural oil one week, spray with insecticidal soap the next and repeat. This isn't the only option, there are tons of products available. Throw out a quarter ounce of a compete fertilizer and move on from your needy roses to the rest of your garden.
The following two pictures are of the same two rose bushes that I trimmed back significantly in August. They were overgrown at the time and I cut them back to about 18" from the ground. They filled out nicely and look so much better. Each picture is from two different angles.
FERTILIZE: Now is the time to incorporate a complete fertilizer (13-13-13 or 8-8-8) into your existing flower beds. We want to get that out this month so that the nutrients are readily available in the soil once the plants come out of dormancy and start to grow again. Fertilize all your fruit trees (blueberry, blackberry, elderberry, etc.) EXCEPT the citrus trees. Now is also the time to pay some attention to the lawn. My lawn is dormant now and the only thing living in it is the clover. I will put out a selective herbicide to control this problem. It's easier to get it under control now then try to deal with it later.
TRIM: Since you've got all your garden tools sharpened last month, now you should be ready to cut back vegetation in the garden. It's the last month to trim up your evergreens and any summer and fall flowering shrubs you have. If your plant blooms in the spring it should be trimmed back right after it blooms, if you'd like to see the blooms on them the following spring. If you trim back a spring flowering bush right now you will cut off the buds as they are already set and therefore it won't bloom this spring. Trim back all the "grasses" as I refer to them, the muhly grass, the pampas grass the monkey grass. Monkey grass is actually a ground cover, so while we are on ground covers....you should also trim your liriope, Asian jasmine (and any other ground cover you may have) back to about 4 inches tall. Some people use mechanical weed trimmers or their lawn mower set high but you can use hedge shears also. Either way you want to get it done this month before you start to see new growth coming in.
PLANT: Transplant any of your vegetables or herbs you started last month in the greenhouse that are busting out of their pots and need to go into the ground. Start your lettuce, eggplant, cauliflower, basil, dill, tomato and broccoli seeds inside this month. Mid-month you can put snap beans, carrot, corn, mustard greens, parsley, spinach and potatoes seeds straight into the ground. Plant your bulbs (tulips, hyacinths, daffodil, narcissus, etc.) and any cool season annuals you want, now.
Louisiana Ag Center has a specific manual for any kind of plants in our area, from vegetables and herbs to roses, perennials, to trees. If you're unsure about something in your garden or if you have an issue, I suggest that you use the internet to look it up. This can be overwhelming with all the information out there. My tip would be to type in "LSU" or "LSU ag center" into the search bar after your question. This helps to get LSU articles to pop up first. These are factual, scientific based and climate specific answers to your issues. (Example: "what annuals should i plant lsu ag center" and only click on those sites that are legit and authentic.)
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