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Tips for getting overgrown garden under control

By Marianne Binetti, The News Tribune
Published: January 25, 2025, 5:55am

TACOMA — The third week of January is the time to get ready for the spring garden shows, and the kick off for Western Washington is the Tacoma Home and Garden Show that runs Jan. 30 to Feb. 2.

Visit the show’s website for speaker and show details, but I’ll be speaking every day of the show and my first talk at 1 p.m. on Thursday is “Taming Your Garden: how to get control of weeds, pruning, watering and other garden chores with tips for early spring.”

Here’s some take-home notes to start cracking the whip and getting that wild garden under control.

  • Taming weeds begins early

Yes you can begin weeding as early as January. The perennial weeds such as dandelion and thistle are easy to see and easier to pull from the wet winter ground. Weeding a garden bed in winter is a tonic for body and soul. Make this the year you resolve to control weeds during the winter and early spring, and you’ll have a garden to enjoy May through August.

  • Pruning puts you in control

Taming a “wild” garden is most often sought after when the plants begin closing in on the house, pathways seem constricted and windows remain dark during the day as vegetation blocks the light.

Stop waiting for the perfect time of year to prune or the sharpest tools and calmest weather. It is OK to begin the purge of overgrown trees and shrubs during winter or early spring no matter what the experts claim.

Yes, you may lose a season of blooms if you saw back a giant rhododendron in February or use hedge trimmers on a sprawling forsythia in January. Maybe you will kill an out-of-control plant by pruning at the wrong time. It is OK. People come before plants, and if you get wet moving evergreen branches every time you take out the garbage, you have a landscape that needs taming.

And it’s actually the proper time to tame these plants with winter pruning now: Hydrangea paniculata or the pee gee hydrangea, fruit trees with bare branches, dormant shrubs with wild branches that block pathways or any plant you just wish would die so you could replace it.

  • Water demands can be silenced with mulches and soil

If dragging a hose around in the summer makes you weary or if your water bill soaks you in guilt, it is time to tame the thirsty monsters in your garden with better soil and the magic of mulching.

Improving the soil means adding organic matter such as compost that will act like a sponge to hold more moisture. But you can also tame thirsty roots by encouraging a deeper and wider root system that can seek out summer moisture without your help.

My best example of teaching shrubs to find water is the story of my hydrangeas. A professional hydrangea grower explained that most shrubs like hydrangeas will grow larger root systems if you allow them to dry out a bit then add some compost at the edges of the roots and water this area to entice the roots to reach outward.

The most effective way to get deeper roots is to dig a deeper planting hole, remove the rocks, and back fill with native soil mixed with compost at the bottom of the hole.

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