February in South Louisiana can mean everything from frozen precipitation to spring-like temperatures. With day length continuing to increase, we are beginning to transition to milder weather. Although winter is far from over, now is the time to look towards spring and tackle the list of gardening chores that we put off over winter.
Valentine’s Day marks the mid-point of the month, which means the window for planting cooling season vegetables is closing fast. If you want to direct seed carrots, spinach, mustard, turnips, radish, English peas, or beets, you need to plant those seed as soon as possible. Continue to plant transplants for broccoli, cabbage, collards, and leaf lettuce through next week for one last opportunity to harvest before the weather gets too warm. Also, don’t forget now is the time to plant Irish potatoes for a May-June harvest. Sweet corn can be planted during the last weeks of February.
While the danger of freezing temperatures typically lingers until around St. Patrick’s Day, we are fast closing in on the time for planting our warm season vegetables. If you want to grow your own transplants of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, squash, or melons, those should be seeded indoors in seed starting trays or cups right away. Make sure to provide plenty of supplemental light to ensure healthy, sturdy transplants that will be ready to plant in the garden by the end of March.
Valentine’s Day may be for sweethearts, but our landscape beds also need some love during February. Now is the time to prune roses such as Knock Out, Drift, Floribunda types, Peggy Martins, and hybrid teas. Pruning should be done to remove dead, damaged, diseased, or crossing branches. Summer-flowering trees and shrubs that bloom on new growth should be pruned now. These include crape myrtle, vitex, althea, and oleander. Hold off on pruning spring bloomers such as azalea, loropetalum, Japanese magnolia, Indian hawthorn, banana shrub, wisteria, and camellia until they have finished blooming. Pruning fruit trees and vines should be done now.
After the extended hard freezes of late January, I’ve seen several people posting online asking questions about pruning herbaceous perennial plants and landscape plants such as hydrangeas. While these plants may look bad after the cold weather, hardy perennials will come back to life once overnight temperatures moderate. Go ahead and remove dead stems and leaves from plants such as lantana, butterfly weed, agapanthus, salvia, and hardy hibiscus. Panicle hydrangeas (H. paniculta) varieties including ‘Tardiva’, ‘Unique’, ‘Pink Diamond’, and ‘Limelight’ can be pruned now. However, mophead hydrangea varieties like ‘Nikko Blue’, ‘Endless Summer’, and ‘PennyMac’ should not be pruned until after blooms fade in summer.
February is the month to fertilize trees and landscape shrubs. Fruit trees such as pecans, persimmons, apples, peaches, plums, citrus, and figs should be fertilized now, along with blueberry bushes, blackberry and muscadine vines. For more information on how to fertilize fruit trees and vines, consult the newly updated LSU AgCenter publication “Louisiana Home Orchard”. Copies are available in our office and on the LSU AgCenter website. Louisiana irises and other spring flowering bulbs and tubers will benefit from additional fertilizer applications to now as well.
Lastly, February is a great time for landscape bed cleanup before the weather gets warm and weeds get out of hand. This includes pulling winter weeds; trimming back foliage of ground covers such as Liriope, monkey grass, and ferns; and refreshing the mulch in beds. Hardy bedding plants such as petunias, snapdragons, alyssum, violas, and phlox can still be added for early spring color.
Lastly, don’t forget about lawn maintenance in February. Now is the time to apply treatments for lawn stickers and pre-emergent herbicides for warm season weed control. Hold off on fertilizing lawns until April when the grass is actively growing.
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to show your garden and landscape some love this month.
