Gardening This Weekend: February 12, 2026
Give gardeners a few days of warm weather and you’ll find them hanging out at nurseries in droves. Let’s make a list of things you’ll want to put on your shopping and “to-do” lists for this weekend.
PLANT
• Cool-season annual color to bolster what recent cold spells might have damaged. You can venture into types that can handle light frosts like petunias, stocks, wallflowers, English daisies, larkspurs, foxgloves, and sweet alyssum.
• Cole crops (broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and kale), also Irish potatoes across the broad band of South Central, Central, and North Central Texas this weekend.
• Leafy and root vegetables in South Texas gardens. (Wait 1-3 weeks in Central, North Texas.)
• Dig and divide summer- and fall-blooming perennials, including mums, fall asters, Mexican bush sage, and others. Do so before they begin their rampant spring growth.
• Finish all transplanting of established trees and shrubs immediately. (You’re too late if they’re already leafed out and growing in South Texas.)
PRUNE
• Summer-flowering shrubs and vines as needed to correct erratic growth, but remove as little as possible. Pruning stimulates new vegetative growth at the expense of production of blooms.
• Remember that there never is any excuse for topping crape myrtles. It is a senseless way of handling these shrubs and trees that ruins their natural growth forms forever. If you have a plant that’s too tall or wide, either move it to a location with more space or remove it entirely.
• Evergreen shrubs as needed to reduce size but try to maintain a natural growth form.
• Bush roses by half, cutting just above buds that face out from the centers of the plants to encourage spreading growth. As you are pruning, watch for signs of the fatal rose rosette virus. Here’s what it looks like from my website.
• Tidy up the lawn by mowing. You’ll be able to remove many of the vigorous broadleafed weeds in the process. It’s early to scalp the turf in the northern half of the state, but fine to do so in South Texas.
FERTILIZE
• Asparagus beds with quick-release, all-nitrogen fertilizer to promote vigorous production of new shoots.
• Annual flowers and foliage can use a pick-up with a soil drench and foliar feeding of high-nitrogen, water-soluble plant food weekly.
• Overseeded ryegrass and fescue turf with all-nitrogen lawn fertilizer to give them a quick green up for spring. These grasses were yellowed by recent cold.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Aphids on daylilies, cabbage, broccoli, other tender new growth. Wash them off with hard stream of water.
• Broadleafed weeds (non-grasses like clover, dandelions, henbit, chickweed, plantain, etc.). Apply a broadleafed weedkiller spray immediately before they come into bloom and quickly start setting seed. Read and follow label directions carefully for best results.
• Wrap trunks of newly planted oaks, maples, pistachios, and other thin-barked species. Use special paper tree wrap or aluminum foil with shiny side facing out. The wrap will protect against sunscald and subsequent borer invasion. It’s non-negotiable with the species I mentioned.
• Stake and guy newly planted trees to keep them plumb. Leave guy wires in place and taut for 2 years. Be careful that they don’t girdle or wear bark of the trees.