February Brings Cleaning, Pruning Chores.(South)

Byline: A Garden Journal Donna Redman For the Journal

February is up to its usual tricks teasing us with almost-warm weather, then slamming us with winter again.

No problem. The warm spells make it easy to get outside and start cleaning up and pruning and getting ready for planting when spring really does get here.

We left the seed stalks on the perennials and wildflowers after they went dormant to provide winter cover and food for birds and to provide some protection to the plants against the cold. Now it's time to tidy up the yard and trim off those dead stalks. Already the blue flax and the coreopsis are sending up new growth.

Fruit trees, shade trees and summer and fall blooming shrubs can be pruned now, while the branches are still bare and you can see what needs to come off. Wait to prune spring bloomers like lilacs and forsythia until after they bloom, so you don't cut off this year's blooms.

Wait to prune roses and grapes until they set leaf buds and those buds just begin to open, in mid-April. Pruning encourages them to grow, and we're not finished with winter just yet.

Last year we had lots of honey bees in our yard. They didn't hurt anything, nobody got stung, and we were glad to have them around to pollinate the fruit trees. I have no idea where their hive is, unless it's in the bosque we live only a quarter of a mile or so from the river.