A steady drip

KEEP PLANTS HAPPY WITH RIGHT AMOUNT, TYPE OF IRRIGATION

THE DAYS are growing longer, the air is slowly warming and there’s no rain in sight, though February is traditionally the wettest month of the year. Pay attention to what your garden is telling you about its water needs. Gardeners, stay vigilant!

IRRIGATION

With days still cool and the sun still low in the sky, plants don’t need much water unless there’s no rain for a couple of weeks, or a freak heatwave. In that case, run each irrigation zone once, then monitor the soil’s moisture and watch the weather to see when the plants need irrigation again.

Check your irrigation controller to make sure all the zones are set for winter conditions. If the water runs more than once a week, that’s too often.

Switch to a newer, Wi-Fi-enabled irrigation controller. These products have their own app that’s easily controlled from your computer or phone.

Protect your garden and your home by adding a f low sensor to your irrigation system. Flow sensors measure how fast or slow water f lows through your irrigation system and sends that information to the controller. If you have a slow leak or a broken pipe, it triggers your irrigation controller to alert you to check the system and fix the problem.

Before the heat and dry air of spring and summer, update your irrigation system to in-line drip.

In-line drip systems are f lexible tubing with emitters embedded inside those lines. These systems are the most efficient and easiest to maintain.

In-line drip laid out as a grid over the entire planting bed wets soil evenly and deeply to encourage deep, drought-resistant roots.

Narrower gauge inline drip is designed for vegetable gardens; wider gauge works for ornamental garden beds and fruiting trees or shrubs.

PROTECT FROM COLD

When will your garden warm up?

Wait to prune away frost-damaged leaves and stems until after your garden’s last frost date. Those damaged parts protect the rest of the plant until the last chance of below-freezing temperatures passes, typically around the end of the month along the coast, in early March inland and late March in the mountains.

ORNAMENTALS

Continue planting native plants like the majestic coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), lemonadeberry (Rhus integrifolia), monkey f lower (Mimulus and Diplacus), Indian mallow (Abutilon palmeri), yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and buckwheats (Eriogonum). Plant into native soils; don’t amend the planting holes, but do throw in a few handfuls of worm castings. Mulch after planting.

Plant Pelargoniums, one of the groups of plants that we commonly call “geraniums,” though they are not actually geraniums. Most Pelargoniums are very drought-tolerant and produce lovely f lowers. Some are fragrant too. Try celery-scented geranium Pelargonium ionidiflorum, which has tiny bright pink f lowers, or South African geranium Pelargonium sidoides, with its blue-green leaves and prolific, tiny burgundy flowers. Pelargonium ’Gary’s Nebula’ blooms coral pink with a bright purple pistil in the center. All of these are beautiful in a pot or edging a f lower bed.

Finish pruning flowering shrubs, trees and perennials before flower buds form. If you wait too long, you’ll prune off f lower buds. If that happens, there won’t be any flowers or fruits this year.

Plant trees! Trees — and all plants — sequester carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases, from the atmosphere. Their shade cools your home in summer. Trees generate the oxygen we breathe; they are wonderful habitat for pollinators and other animals. And trees are beautiful!

Keep an eye out for palm trees whose center fronds suddenly collapse. That could be evidence of the deadly, invasive South American palm weevil. In the past, it primarily attacked Canary Island date palms. Now, its appetite seems to be expanding. By time the infection is visible, palms cannot be saved. If you see or have an infected palm, please report it at cisr.ucr.edu/invasive-species/palmarum-survey.

PROJECTS

Stroll your garden with an eye toward projects that would make your garden prettier, more welcoming, more artistic or just more fun.

Use a slab of stone to span a dry streambed or prop it up on rocks for a welcoming bench.

Convert an outdated fountain to a succulent planter. Make sure to add drainage holes before you plant.

Create a color-filled mosaic on a plain concrete or stucco wall.

Large, brightly glazed pottery doesn’t need to be planted. Set a tall, unplanted pot in a bed of ornamental plants as a piece of architecture or to serve as contrasting texture.

Set a large, glazed ceramic pot atop an underground basin outfitted with a recirculating pump to make a water feature that attracts birds, bees, lizards and other wildlife.

VEGETABLE GARDEN

Plant your last coolseason crops — such as kohlrabi, broccoli and cabbage — from seedlings.

Direct-seed seedling potatoes, carrots, radishes, turnips and beets.

Start planting pole beans and bush beans now. Fava beans are good to plant now too.

If you planted a cover crop in your vegetable garden, cut it down this month. Leave the roots in place. Put the leaves into compost or layer them onto your garden beds to decompose in place. In about eight weeks, the beds will be ready for spring and summer veggies.

Buy seeds for spring/ summer vegetables, herbs and f lowers. Don’t jump the gun, however; wait until next month to plant them.

Ready to start your spring vegetable garden from seed? Take my in-person and/or online Easy Seed Starting course starting in early March. Sign up at water wisegardener.com so you get notice when registration opens.

FRUITING TREES, SHRUBS, VINES, PERENNIALS

Prune grapevines. Cut the vines back to just one or two side branches (these are called laterals). Shorten each side branch to just one or two nodes; nodes look like joints but are actually scars from fallen leaves. The nodes will sprout new branches to bear this summer’s crop.

Continue planting bare-root fruit trees, blueberries, artichokes and strawberries.

Harvest citrus. Lots of citrus are ready to harvest and eat now, including limes, kumquats, mandarins, grapefruits, lemons, tangelos and navel oranges.

Start fertilizing citrus and avocado with organic citrus and avocado food. Granulated fertilizers are easiest to use but liquids work just as well. Follow label directions.

Finish pruning and spraying deciduous fruit trees like peaches, pluots, apples, pears, etc., before you notice buds swell and leaves peek out. Once deciduous fruit trees spring to life, apply the year’s first dose of fruit tree fertilizer — granular or liquid organic formulations are best. Always follow label directions.

AND ...

Keep up with weeds. Hoe them, smother them with mulch, pull them out.

Weeds can be frustrating, no doubt. Here’s what not to use to kill weeds: bleach, salt, saltwater, oil, gasoline, any kind of petroleum product, household disinfectant or Epsom salts. All of these products are terrible for soil. They can kill the beneficial microbes and important insects that live in soil. Some have long-term toxic effects too.

Nan Sterman is a waterwise garden designer and writer and the host of “A Growing Passion” on KPBS television. More information is at agrowingpassion.com waterwisegardener.com. and