Neil Sperry: Here’s your winter to-do list for your North Texas landscape

This isn’t a list that has to be finished in a day, or even a weekend. But these are things you’ll want to get done in the next three or four weeks as time and weather permit. They’re responsibilities of the dormant season while your plants are at rest.

• Transplanting of woody plants. If you have established trees or shrubs that need to find new homes, this is the only time of the year you should dig and relocate them. Practice your best patience as you strive to hold the plants’ root balls intact. Use a sharpshooter spade for most of the digging but use a pruning saw or lopping shears to cut larger roots. Set the plants at the same depths at which they were growing in their old homes and firm the soil around them. Stake and guy any that might be in danger of tipping out of vertical, and water them slowly and deeply to get air out of the new soil.

• Pruning of fruit trees, vines. Peach and plum trees come to mind first. Your goal is to maintain them in a cereal-bowl shape, 9 to 10 feet tall and 14 to 16 feet wide. Remove any strongly vertical shoots each winter as you prune to outward-facing buds.

Apples should be pruned to remove strongly vertical shoots (“water sprouts”) and any damaged or rubbing branches. Pears should be pruned only as needed to remove dead or damaged branches. Pomegranates and figs require no regular pruning except as needed to remove frozen or damaged branches.

Grapes are pruned heavily each winter by removing 80% to 85% of their cane growth. Granted, by doing so you’ll reduce the numbers of clusters of grapes, but you’ll greatly improve the quality of the fruit that do develop. If you have the vines growing on a trellis system, prune to maintain the vines along the trellises.

Blackberries are not pruned in winter. Wait until late spring, just after harvest. Trim out all canes that have just borne fruit by cutting them completely to the ground. They will never bear fruit again. Take the tips out of the newly developing canes to encourage side branching.

• Keep leaves and other debris picked up off lawn. Fallen tree leaves pack down and can trap moisture on your turf. That’s a breeding ground of lawn diseases, plus it makes your home look unsightly. Run the mower over the lawn to remove the debris, also to eliminate many of the cool-season weeds.

• Spray for cool-season broadleafed weeds. When you get a break in the cold weather in the next several weeks apply a broadleafed herbicide containing 2,4-D to kill developing weeds such as dandelions, clover, henbit, chickweed, plantain and thistles, among others. Read and follow label directions for best results.

• Prepare garden soil for early vegetable plantings. Believe it or not, the first vegetable plantings come as early as early to mid-January (asparagus roots) and late January (sugar snap-type English peas and onions).

If you are preparing a vegetable garden in a new area, begin by removing all existing vegetation with a square-bladed nursery spade laid almost parallel to the soil surface. Rototill 10 to 12 inches deep using a rear-tine tiller. They do a superior job of pulverizing the soil compared to front-tine tillers. Then incorporate 4 to 5 inches of sphagnum peat moss, well-rotted manure, finely ground pine bark mulch and compost. If you’re amending a clay soil, include 1 inch of expanded shale as well.

Each time you rework the soil for a subsequent season of plantings add the same organic materials in half the amounts listed and rototill to the same 10 to 12 inches.

• Have your soil tested now rather than waiting. I would recommend the Soil Testing Laboratory at Texas A&M. They have the sophisticated equipment to do any type of test you might require, but for most of us, a basic test of the major elements nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, plus pH should be adequate. It’s ideal to have the soil tested every three or four years.

As a head start in interpreting your soil test results, remember that nitrogen (N) promotes leaf and stem growth. Phosphorus (P) is responsible for roots, flowers and fruit. Potassium, or potash (K) is important for summer and winter hardiness.

That said, one would think that a flower or vegetable garden would need a high-phosphate fertilizer (higher in the middle number of the three-number analysis). However, for years the soil tests have been coming back with the warning that our Texas soils (especially clays) are far too high in their content of phosphorus already – that it is having bad effects on our plants’ uptake of other nutrients. So don’t be surprised if your soil test suggests that you apply a high-quality, all-nitrogen fertilizer, even for tomatoes or petunias.

• Work with landscape designer now. Anyone in my industry gets crazy-busy in the springtime. Wise gardeners who are contemplating landscaping improvements work with their landscape architect, nursery professional or landscape designer in the off season before the crush of spring settles in.

Trying to find a landscape planner you’ll really like? Look around your neighborhood. Don’t be afraid to ask at houses with handsome gardens. Your local nursery owner will likely have suggestions. Look for active members of the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association. There are many fine designers and degreed landscape architects out there. Ask to see examples of their work and keep looking until you find someone you like. You’ll enjoy making the new friend, and mid-winter is the best time to do so.