Gardening This Weekend: January 15, 2026
Here’s our list of the things you’ll want to get done fairly soon in your Texas landscape and garden.
PLANT
• Onion slips and snap-type English peas next week in South and South Central Texas. Wait a week or two longer in North Texas.
• Transplant established trees and shrubs that need to be moved within your landscape. This must be done while they are dormant in winter.
• Bare-rooted fruit and pecan trees, grape vines and bramble berries.
• Fruit and pecan trees, grape vines and bramble berries. Here is a link to TAMU fact sheets on all types of fruit crops.
• Cool-season annuals such as pansies, violas, and pinks into patio pots, or in South Texas, into the garden. The list also includes sweet alyssum, larkspurs, wallflowers, Iceland poppies, sweet peas, snapdragons and stocks, among others.
PRUNE
• Oaks to remove unwanted branches. They must be pruned during winter (prior to mid-February) to minimize likelihood of oak wilt invasion into cut surfaces. Do not leave stubs. Seal all cut surfaces with pruning paint, but only for oaks.
• Peach and plum trees to encourage horizontal branching and strong scaffold branching system 22 to 26 inches from the ground.
• Apples to remove strongly vertical shoots (“watersprouts”). Pears only to remove damaged or rubbing branches.
• Grapes to remove 80 to 85 percent of canes and maintain vines on strong supports.
• Wait to prune blackberries until after harvest, then cut canes that just bore fruit to the ground. They will never bear fruit again.
• Do not prune figs except to remove damaged branches.
• Evergreen shrubs to reshape. It’s best usually to remove one branch at a time to avoid the sheared look. By using lopping shears, you can probably reduce their height and width by 20 to 25 percent.
• Summer-flowering shrubs and vines as needed to maintain good shape.
• Never “top” crape myrtles. There is no benefit to be gained, and you’ll ruin their natural form forever.
FERTILIZE
• Winter annuals with water-soluble, high-nitrogen plant food.
• Established asparagus plantings with all-nitrogen, fast-release fertilizer such as ammonium sulfate by side-banding along the rows of plants. Goal is to create burst of new shoot growth in February, early March.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Scale insects on landscape plants. Apply horticultural oil (“dormant oil”) when temperatures are between 40 and 80 degrees for 48 hours without rain. Watch the forecast carefully – there won’t be many opportunities before plants bud out and start growing.
• Insect pests on houseplants. Watch especially for scale insects, mealybugs, whiteflies and spider mites. Your Texas Certified Nursery Professional can show you the best products to control these pests.