Gardening This Weekend: November 13, 2025
It will get progressively colder as we head into the winter. Here are your goals to accomplish over the next few days or weeks.
PLANT
• Landscape plants now. Nurseries have sales going on. Woody plants set out now will have root systems in place before next summer arrives.
• Winter annual color such as pansies, pinks, ornamental cabbage and kale, and snapdragons all across Texas. In South Texas you can also add in English daisies, stocks, sweet alyssum, Iceland poppies, California poppies, and wallflowers, among others.
• Daffodil, narcissus, jonquil, grape hyacinth, and summer snowflake bulbs now. Last call to put tulips and Dutch hyacinths into fridge to get their required “pre-chilling.” They need 45 days at 45F before planting out into garden last two weeks of December.
PRUNE
• Mow to remove fallen leaves and mulch them. Bag them to put into the compost or to use as mulch in perennial garden or shrub bed. Do not send to the landfill.
• Remove spent flower stalks, seed heads from perennial garden. Put layer of mulch around plants to reduce weed populations over winter.
• Give errant shoots on shrubs a light trim. Save major pruning and reshaping for later in winter.
• Remove tree roots that are threatening sidewalks and drives, but no more than one or two roots per year.
FERTILIZE
• Pansies, pinks and other winter annuals with high-nitrogen, water-soluble plant food each time that you water them.
• Ryegrass and fescue with all-nitrogen food now during their prime growing season.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Where moisture has been adequate clover, dandelions, chickweed, henbit, and other cool-season broadleafed weeds are up and growing now. Spray them with a broadleafed herbicide (containing 2,4-D). Falling temperatures will soon make that impossible so do not delay.
• Brown patch (also called “large patch”) is attacking St. Augustine turf across Texas. It shows up in rounded patches 18 to 24 inches across. Blades pull loose easily from runners. You will see decayed tissues at bases of leaf blades. Treat lawn with a fungicide labeled for patch diseases and discontinue evening waterings.
• Use individual mound treatments and area-wide baits to control fire ants. Teach young children how to recognize and respect their mounds as they appear following rains.