San Diego gardeners should get any bare-root plants and trees in the ground this month and finish spraying and pruning dormant trees and plants before flower buds form.
Buy Winter-Blooming Shrubs and Plants
You can have year-round color in your San Diego garden thanks to our mild weather. Aloes bloom from January through April with bright red, orange and gold flowers. Also, look for camellias and azaleas in nurseries now. Christmas Heather or Pink Scotch Heather, Geraldton waxflower and New Zealand tea tree are winter-blooming shrubs, and rosemary, grevillea, daffodils and Parrot’s Beak are also blooming in my yard this month.
For quick color, add cool-season annuals like pansies, poppies, violas, stock, primroses, calendulas, snapdragons, dianthus and lobelia.
If you are looking for more ideas for winter bloomers, check out how to Add Year-Round Color to San Diego Gardens.
Cut-Back and Shape-Up Your San Diego Garden
February is a good time for cutting back tropical and semi-tropical plants like begonias, gingers and cannas. If you’re near the coast, mid-February is fine. If you’re farther inland, wait until the end of the month. This reinvigorates the plant for a surge of new growth as the days warm. A side dressing of slow-release fertilizer will get them off to a good start.
You can also tidy up aeoniums and echeverias because they start growing now. If the tall stalks are looking leggy, cut off rosettes with about an inch of stem. Leave them somewhere cool and dry for a week or longer. Then plant them in cactus mix. Keep the stem on the old plant because it may grow new rosettes that you can also remove and replant.
If your Mexican sage is looking rough, and you see new growth at the base that’s around 6 to 8 inches tall, remove the old spikes and stems. Penstemon, Verbena bonariensis, Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ and other sages will also benefit from a trimming now.
Red Roses for Valentine’s Day
This Valentine’s Day change it up and give your loved one a rose plant instead of a bouquet. Check your local nursery for red roses recommended by the San Diego Rose Society:
- ‘Valentine’s Day’—mini floribunda climber 8-10 feet tall with soft-red blossoms and no fragrance.
- ‘Let Freedom Ring’—vigorous, hybrid tea with strawberry-red blooms and a light, sweet fragrance.
- ‘Black Buccara’—tall, hybrid tea with burgundy-red and black tones and no fragrance.
- ‘Firefighter’—hybrid tea with dark red on top of petals and lighter underneath. Fragrance is lovely with hints of raspberries.
- ‘Altissimo’—climber for covering a trellis with single, crimson blossoms and a clove fragrance.
- ‘The Dark Lady’—David Austin English Rose with dark crimson flowers and good fragrance. Grows well at the coast.
San Diego Gardens Tips Source
A lot of information for San Diego Gardens comes from the Master Gardener Association of San Diego County. They are a great resource for all of your gardening needs including planting, pests, vegetables, and water use. They even have a free hotline where you can get your home gardening and pest control problems answered.