Kathy’s Gardening Guide: Winter Landscaping

“The beauty of the natural world lies in the details.””

— Natalie Angier

The Recorder’s garden columnist, Kathy Esfahani of Kathy’s Creative Gardens & Nursery, shares her tips for growing gorgeous gardens in Northeast Florida.

The landscape can seem a bit less colorful this time of year. Many of our favorite blooms are dormant or not available during the cooler months. But there are flowers that will brighten your yard and tasks that prepare for the spring warmup!

Winter flowers will add color to wake up your landscape! Look for annuals such as dusty miller, pansies, petunias, snapdragons and violas. These plants are available in many colors and look great in garden beds and planters. Most importantly, they are tough enough to withstand the cold temperatures we may experience.

Camellias are also a popular choice at this time of year as they are the only perennial that blooms in winter. These evergreen shrubs produce flowers in white, pink and red. Use camellias as an anchor for a landscape bed or a hedge in your yard. These shrubs are low maintenance and will produce stunning blooms for years to come!

Winter is also a great time to tend to your landscape ahead of warmer spring temperatures. Several tasks are important:

• Protect your plants from frost and cold temperatures! Tropical plants are especially sensitive to temperatures below 40 degrees and should be covered with frost cloth ahead of freezes. These plants include arboricola, bird of paradise, bougainvillea, crotons, crown of thorns, ginger, gold mound, Hawaiian ti, kalanchoe, mandevilla, philodendron, sea grapes, stromanthe, sunpatiens, tibouchina and Xanadu as well as adonidia palms, lady palms and roebellini palms. Also, be sure to cover more sensitive plants below 32 degrees (blue daze, bush daisies, geraniums, gold dust, pentas, salvia, and sedum) and cover citrus trees below 30 degrees.

• Monitor your irrigation system. Although less water is needed than during the hot summer months, you should still water your landscape, especially if rainfall is low and temperatures are higher than normal. Be careful not to water within 48 hours of an upcoming freeze and turn off your irrigation system for those events.

• Winter is a good time to prune shrubs and trees that do not bloom in the spring. Make sure not to prune once new buds have appeared! When pruning, remove dead or injured branches but keep the cutting to a minimum. Hedges can be shaped and thinned. Trim the top of the hedges more narrowly than the bottom to allow sunlight to reach all the leaves.

• Finally, winter is a good time to spread new mulch in your garden beds. This new layer will help keep roots warm during cold temperatures and freshen the look of your landscape.

Take advantage of sunny days to give your landscape a little TLC!

Flower of the Week: Dusty Miller

Please email Kathy at kathys.creative.gardens@gmail.com for any questions or gardening tips you would like to see in the future. For more information and ideas, visit the nursery in Ponte Vedra Beach! Kathy’s Creative Gardens & Nursery, 196 N. Roscoe Blvd. 904-655-7373.