Gardening This Weekend: February 20, 2025
Just about the time you think you can come out and start gardening, another cold front catches the southbound bus into Texas. This one’s been a doozie. But maybe things are about to even out to let us get spring underway. Here are our goals for the weekend.
PLANT
• Cole crops, including broccoli, cabbage, Brussel’s sprouts, cauliflower, and kale. OK – and kohrabi, too, if you’re that guy.
• Spring color plants if you’re convinced that frosts and freezes are finished in your area. Some types (petunias, ornamental chard, larkspurs, Texas Gold columbines, wallflowers, sweet alyssum and others) can handle frosts and light freezes. Talk to your Certified Nursery Professional for localized suggestions.
• Finish transplanting dormant trees and shrubs that need to be moved from “over here” to “over there.” Hold a ball of soil intact around their roots and reset at the same depth at which they’ve been growing. Water deeply immediately after you replant them. Stake and guy if they’re large enough to lean in windstorms.
• Dig and divide summer- and fall-flowering perennials soon, especially if you’re in South Texas. You want to get this job done before they start sending up new shoots of spring growth.
PRUNE
• Newly transplanted trees and shrubs to compensate for roots left behind in the digging.
• Spring-flowering shrubs and vines as they finish blooming to reshape them and get them ready for regrowth this spring. Most haven’t bloomed yet, but things start early in South Texas.
• Prune berries from nandinas so cedar waxwings and other migrating birds won’t binge on them. They have trouble digesting them and can even die. You can use this trimming to remove the tallest canes clear to the ground to keep the plants more compact.
• Reshape evergreens before they start their vigorous spring growth. Try to leave them in natural growth forms whenever possible.
• If you’ve made it this far without butchering (topping) your crape myrtles, you can make it a few weeks more. It ruins the plants. Please don’t do it.
FERTILIZE
• Rye and fescue turf with all-nitrogen food for biggest flush of spring growth. Wait to fertilize warm-season grasses.
• Spring color beds with high-nitrogen, water-soluble plant food weekly to promote vigorous growth.
• Side-band rows of vegetable crops with high-nitrogen fertilizer to promote vigorous growth.
• Liquid root-stimulator fertilizer should be applied monthly to newly planted trees, shrubs.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Broadleafed weedkiller spray to control all non-grassy weeds in lawn. Most brands contain a blend of three different herbicides. Keep off shrubs and groundcovers and do not allow drift to coat annual flowers nearby. Do not mow or irrigate lawn for 2-3 days before or after you spray.
• There is no control at this point for annual bluegrass and other winter weedy grasses. Apply a pre-emergent herbicide in the first week of September to stop them.
• Apply pre-emergent granules 2 weeks prior to average date of last killing freeze for your area to prevent germination of crabgrass and grassburs. That time will be coming up soon. In warmest parts of South Texas it is here now.
• Aphids congregating on tender new foliage and flowerbuds. Wash off with brisk stream of water or apply general-purpose organic or inorganic insecticide.
• Peaches, plums, apples, and pears, also pecans require regular spring spraying program to prevent insect and disease problems. It’s probably time to begin that program where you are. Here’s the most current schedule I found on many counties’ websites here in Texas.