January Garden Checklist: Planting, Pruning, and Planning for the Year Ahead

Plant

As you browse nurseries for winter-flowering heaths, don't overlook their close relatives, the heathers. Many varieties offer a dual appeal: summer blooms paired with striking winter foliage in shades of green, chartreuse, yellow, lilac-gray, scarlet, and russet.

Bare-root berries, grapes, fruit trees, vines, vegetables, and ornamentals arrive in nurseries now. They're inexpensive and adapt quickly to unamended native soil, so plant them as soon as they're available.

Scout for winter-flowering camellias, Viburnum bodnantense, wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox), and a wide array of witch hazels to add fragrance and color to the cold-season garden.

Maintain

Prune ever-blooming, disease-resistant shrub roses such as 'Knockout', the Flower Carpet series, and 'Easy Elegance' roses for shape and vigor.

A clever tool innovation: Corona's convertible pruner/lopper features fold-out handles that transform a hand pruner into a lopper capable of cutting branches up to 1¼ inches in diameter ($40, coronatoolsusa.com).

Brief winter warm spells often trigger a flush of weed seedlings in empty beds. Act fast with a scuffle hoe to eliminate them now and save hours of hand-weeding later.

Plan

With many plants leafless, January is ideal for assessing garden beds and borders. Note the shape and placement of trees, shrubs, and ground covers, and identify areas needing improvement. If beds are narrow and straight, plan to widen and curve them. Consider adding tall plants for the back, medium-height for the middle, and low-growing edgers for the front.

For a durable, all-weather path, dig a trench 5 feet wide and 6 inches deep. Fill the bottom half with packed sand and top with ground bark for a dry, quiet surface.

Space new plants according to their mature sizes—they'll fill in faster than you expect. In the meantime, fill gaps with annuals; winter seed catalogs offer endless choices.