When Rain Stops, There’s Work to Do

When the Pacific storms are perfectly spaced, as they were over the recent holidays, gardeners could take a vacation, even in this year-round gardening climate.

All those things you planted in the fall, as well as plants in the rest of the garden, were watered better than any irrigation system can manage, and little else needed to be done in December.

January is another story and, with any luck, we’ll get our customary break from winter storms this month so we can get after all those weeds that have sprouted in these gentle rains and have time to plant and prune the roses.

In the meantime, be sure to stay out of the garden beds while they’re wet or you’ll do serious damage to the soil, compacting it so air and water can’t penetrate, undoing all the effort you’ve put into improving it.

If you’re aching to start planting roses, try this simple test before stepping into the garden: Dig up a handful of soil and lightly squeeze it into a ball in your hand. Then push with your finger and see if it breaks apart. If it does, the soil is dry enough to dig in. If it remains a dense, sticky ball, it needs more time to dry.

At this time of the year, with the sun still low and temperatures cool, it might take as long as a week after a storm for the soil to dry sufficiently. This should also remind those with automatic sprinkler systems that they must greatly increase the time interval between irrigating or simply turn the clock off for the winter and water manually between storms, if they don’t want to drown plants. I haven’t watered my garden since some time in October.

If you need to get into a bed that is too wet in order to prune roses or do some other chore, stand on a square of plywood to distribute your weight, but don’t dig in a wet soil.

After pruning roses or fruit trees, be sure to spray with the environmentally friendly dormant sprays sold at nurseries, one of this month’s big opportunities. These are not poisons, but they contain light horticultural oils that suffocate pests and natural materials like copper or sulfur that kill diseases.

You might say that it’s winter and there are no pests or diseases on your roses right now; dormant sprays are made precisely for these conditions and are safe to use only on leafless plants. They get what horticulturists call “over-wintering” pests and diseases--the few that will become the many by spring. Dormant sprays give you a safe, fresh start on the new year.

Too Wet

With all this wet weather, now is a good time to check to make sure plants aren’t getting too wet and staying that way for too long. In beds of annuals and perennials, persistent puddles are a sign that the soil is too dense and needs amending with some organic product and gypsum.

The base or crown of the plant is particularly vulnerable to being wet too long. That’s why it is often recommended to plant trees and shrubs “high,” so the top of the root ball is actually above the soil level by an inch or so and drys out quickly. The base of a plant should never be below ground level.

Lots of gardeners know this, but they often forget that if mulches are too close to a plant’s base, they create the same effect as planting too deep.

I was dramatically reminded of this while visiting a friend’s garden the other day. He was having trouble with an apricot that was several years old and thought it might be dying.

It certainly looked dead to me and, after I snapped a few branches to see if it was really gone, I pulled on the trunk and the whole tree fell over. Not a single root was left. All had rotted from staying too wet too long.

This tree was in a low part of the garden where water collected, but I suspect the chunky, choking, bark mulch had a lot to do with its demise. Mulches tend to collect silt and debris and become more like soil as the years go by, so the base of the plant stays too damp.

I suggested that he clear the mulch away from the base of all his other trees so there was a good 3- to 4-foot circle free of mulch around each tree.

A few days later, I was putting in my hours at the community garden when I noticed the same problem in the orchard area. All of the fruit trees had been heavily mulched and, although a small area had been left around the base of each tree, there still wasn’t enough breathing room. Each tree looked as if it had been planted in a well, not a good idea.

Weeding Weather

When the dry winds pick up between storms, it’s time to weed. Winter’s weeds are mostly shallow-rooted annuals, easily hoed out. But if the air is moist or cool, weeds are likely to root right back into the ground at this time of the year.

I weeded my whole vegetable plot at the community garden a few weeks ago, only to come back a few days later to find all the weeds upright and growing happily.

It probably would have been a good idea to rake up the dug-up weeds during that rainy spell, but it is easier to hold off weeding until a Santa Ana begins to blow.

It also helps if your hoe is sharp so it cuts the roots instead of simply dragging the plants out of the ground. Too few gardeners remember that many garden tools need to be sharpened, though it’s easily done with a big file. If you don’t have one, look for what is called a bastard file at the hardware store and give hoes and spades a few swipes.

Then, when the soil dries enough, you’ll be ready for more gardening.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Garden Events

Walks, Talks, Shows and Special Sales

Jan. 12: Fruit tree pruning lecture by Jean Natter, 2 p.m., at South Coast Botanic Garden, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula, (310) 544-1948. Admission: $5, adults; $3, seniors and students; $1, children.

Jan. 18 and 19: Southern California Camellia Society show and sale, 1 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, at Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive, La Can~ada Flintridge, (818) 952-4401. Admission: $5, adults; $3, seniors and students; $1, children.

Send garden announcements to Garden Events, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, at least three weeks before the event date.