January 2023 Gardening Advice

submitted by Jennifer Fairfield, Garden Mill and Manchester Community & School Gardens

(Note: The Garden Mill will be closed for the entire month of January doing cleanup and inventory, and getting in lots of new products for the new season. They will reopen on February 1.)

It's hard to think of January as a “gardening” month, but it is! There are lots of things you can do that are garden-related this month, even if you can’t necessarily be out in your gardens as much as you’d like.

• I’m terrible about paying much attention, beyond watering, to my indoor plants all spring and summer — I’m too busy with the outdoor plants! Winter is my chance to try to make it up to them. Take some time to clean off leaves, which if they are anything like mine, are covered with a fine layer of dust. That layer of dust can keep the plants from getting sun, and they need all the help they can get in that area when the daylight hours are so short, and what sun we do get is not very strong. Moving your plants closer to the windows can also help, but be sure that their leaves are not touching the cold glass, or that they aren’t in drafty areas. Either can be really hard on tender plants.
• Along with light, ample humidity is a challenge during the winter for indoor plants. If you don’t have a whole-house humidifier, and it’s not possible to have a room humidifier in every room where you have plants, there are still ways to increase the humidity around them. One way is to put the plant on a tray of pebbles that is kept filled with water. You don’t want the plant’s roots to be in the water all the time, but the evaporating water will humidify the air around the plant. You can also put trays of water out around the plants to accomplish the same thing.
• Don’t fertilize indoor plants for the next few months, as they need a resting period just like outdoor plants. There are some exceptions to this rule, such as African violets, which need to be fertilized regularly to keep blooming.
• Winter is also a good time to re-pot any plants that have outgrown their current pots and are getting root-bound. Root-bound plants dry out faster, and generally don’t do well — looking a bit sickly the longer they are stuck in an old pot. When re-potting, don’t go up too much in pot size, unless the plant is severely root-bound, and a significantly larger pot is the only way to spread the roots out. The general rule of thumb is to only go up one to two inches more in diameter and height than the current pot. You can also divide plants, giving you more smaller plants, instead of one big one. It’s easier to do this before the roots have gotten so thick you need a machete to get through them, but it can still be done — even at that point, as long as your machete is sharp!
• If you got a poinsettia or Christmas cactus this holiday season, and are not sure how to care for it, this article from PennState Extension can help you figure it out: https://extension.psu.edu/poinsettia-and-christmas-cactus-care.
• Another plant often purchased at this time of year is the Norfolk Island pine, a lovely pine native to an island off the coast of New Zealand. This plant needs very little special care, but this piece from Iowa State University’s extension office offers some good tips: https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/faq/how-do-i-care-norfolk-island-pine.

Outdoors:

• Now is a great time to plan to take care of problems in your flower beds and other landscaping. Remember what your gardens looked like this summer — were there things that needed a pick-me-up, that maybe didn’t do so well last year, or that needed dividing? Plan now for what you want to do with your flower beds to give you a head start on spring. Planning now will give you a jump on the what to look for when the nurseries start getting in their spring plants. Dreaming of all that loveliness can also help get through the dreary days of winter.
• Another thing to think about for your landscape is how it looks right now. Does your garden have any winter interest, or is it all about spring and summer? Start thinking now about what you might add in the spring and summer to enhance how the beds look in the winter. Having something beautiful to look at in the winter can really help get you through until you can be out there! Things to consider include evergreen shrubs and trees, plants with winter color, such as red osier dogwood or cranberry cotoneaster, and native grasses that can provide different textures. Plants that produce berries, including winterberry and hollies, can add great color to the winter garden, as well as provide a food source for birds. Be sure to consider height, since there is a good possibility that low-growing plants might be covered with snow in the winter!
• Statuary and structures can also add interest to your garden year-round. Arbors and arches give height that can stand out against the snow in winter and provide support for climbing vines in the summer. Statuary can add a little whimsy to any season.
• January is a great time to plan your vegetable garden, too! Take the time now to make decisions about what you want to grow this year — was there something that did really well in your garden last year that you want to be sure to get again or something that didn’t do as well as you had hoped, and you might want to try something different this year? Seed catalogs are hitting mailboxes already — and we’ve gotten our first shipment of seeds!
• While there’s no hint of snow in our forecast for the next little while, we know it will come. Remember to clear snow from evergreens if it is weighing the branches down, to prevent damage. Gently brush the snow off, but be careful not to bang on the branches, as that is likely to break them. Don’t try to remove ice that is encasing tree or shrub branches. You can cause far more damage than the ice on its own, so it’s best to let ice melt off naturally.

Birds:

• I never get tired of watching the birds in my yard! Keeping my feeders full could be a full-time job if I let it, partly because I have a lot of feeders, and partly because I have a lot of birds at my feeders (hmmm ... Do you think there’s some sort of correlation there?) It’s worth it to me to do the extra work to keep them full, though, because they provide me with endless hours of entertainment.
• I’ve been asked many times whether a person should be concerned about starting to feed birds in the winter if they are planning to be away for any length of time. The answer is no — you can safely leave the birds for an extended period without worrying that they have become so dependent on you feeding them that they will go hungry while you’re away. Birds are great at finding sources of food wherever they can. Feed them when you are around for two reasons — first, because providing them with easy-access food means they save the energy they would expend in looking for food, which can be important when it’s really cold out; second, because they’re just so much fun to watch!
• I know I’ve said it before, but it’s important enough that I feel like I need to be that broken record — please consider providing the birds with a source of water during the winter. With temperatures going below freezing, water is hard to find when you live outdoors. Water is no less important to birds than to us, but they can’t just turn on a tap to get it when they need it. Putting out a heated birdbath or putting a de-icer in your birdbath can be a literal lifesaver for birds during the winter.

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.