Q: My garden is looking a little brown this time of year. What
can I plant to add a little color to these cold, gloomy days?
Q: My garden is looking a little brown this time of year. What can I plant to add a little color to these cold, gloomy days?
– P. T., Hollister, via e-mail
A: Annual bedding plants are always a good, inexpensive option. Choose from six packs of pansies, violas, Iceland poppies, primroses, primula, calendula, snapdragons, stock, etc. All of these flowers are winter bedding plants, meaning they will grow fine in our cold, frosty weather. They will bloom until it starts to get hot, usually through May or June. At that time, you simply replace them with summer bedding plants.
This is also a great time to shop for azaleas, rhododendrons or camellias.
All of these landscape specimens are winter blooming. While some may be showing color now, like camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons usually bloom around Mother’s Day.
Q: My wife is bugging me to cover our Japanese maple tree because of all the frost. But I keep telling her that it’s a “Japanese” maple, originating in Japan. Doesn’t Japan get snow? Can you help me convince her that Japanese maples don’t need frost protection?
– K.V, Gilroy, via e-mail.
A: OK, you owe me a lunch because I just got you out of a lot of work. Japanese maples do not need frost protection. They do, indeed, do fine in our cold weather. About the only plants that need frost protection are tropical specimens, such as ferns, hibiscus, bougainvillaea, and some citrus like limes and lemons.
Even with these specimens, if plants are older than two or three-years-old, they usually will not die in our frosts. Sure, they may not look very good, but at least they won’t die. Most often, they’ll come back fine when our warmer weather arrives.
To tell if plants are OK, scratch the bark with a knife. If it’s still green underneath, everything is fine. If it’s brown, then at least that section has died. If plants do suffer frost damage, do not prune away the damage. Believe it or not, even the damaged parts provide some protection. Wait until spring to prune away the ugly parts.
Q: When should I spray my fuchsias? I’m not even sure whether they should be pruned. Can you please help?
– D.P., Morgan Hill, via e-mail
A: Fuchsias should not be pruned until March in our area. Fuchsias are examples of tropical-like plants that sometimes suffer frost damage. For that reason, do not prune now since all the leaves and branches are providing some cold-weather protection.
Fuchsias bloom only on new wood – the current season’s growth of new branches. This translates to the fact that pruning is necessary if you want to have flowers come summer. Young fuchsias plants can be pruned pretty drastically. If your fuchsia is older, simply remove most of last year’s growth.
