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Gardening in the UK?→ January’s almanac for the British climate
ALMANAC · ITALIAN CLIMATE

The garden in January — Italy

January is the coldest month almost everywhere in Italy, but what you can do varies enormously from one end of the country to the other. In the north the ground is often frozen or sodden and best left alone: walking on a wet bed compacts it for months. In the south and along the coasts, by contrast, winter is mild and rainy, and January is a good month for planting.

Wherever you garden, this is the time to protect tender plants, carry out the winter pruning of dormant fruit trees and get the first sowings going in the warmth, indoors or in a greenhouse. It's also a chance to look hard at the bare garden, which shows very clearly what's missing.

Italy. Advice is given for the north (Po valley, pre-Alps and hills), the centre (Tyrrhenian and Adriatic sides and the interior) and the south and islands (coasts and plains). In the mountains and inland valleys, timings run 2–4 weeks later.

AT A GLANCE

Spotlight: protecting potted citrus from frost

Lemons, oranges and mandarins in pots are the plants that suffer most in a northern Italian winter, and the lemon is the most tender of all: below 0 to -2°C its leaves and young shoots are damaged, and roots in a pot freeze long before they would in the ground. Kumquats and mandarins will take a couple of degrees more, but only for a few hours.

The ideal winter home is bright and cool: a veranda, a traditional limonaia or a light stairwell at 5–10°C. A heated sitting room is the worst option – warmth and low light make the leaves drop and invite scale insects. If you have no shelter, group the pots against the most protected wall of the house, raise them off the ground, wrap the pots in hessian or bubble wrap and, on nights below -2°C, cover the canopy with horticultural fleece, removing it during the day.

In winter water very little, only when the compost is dry well below the surface, and don't feed. Check the undersides of the leaves now and then: indoors, scale multiplies quickly. On the coasts of the centre and south, citrus can stay outside all winter; a light cover on the odd cold night is enough.

Kumquat Overwintering tender plants ›

In your area

NORTH

Frequent frosts, down to -5 to -10°C on clear nights in the Po valley, plus fog. Citrus, potted oleanders, bougainvillea and mandevilla need to be under cover. No outdoor sowing yet.

CENTRAL

Frost is possible inland but rarer on the Tyrrhenian coast. Bare-root trees and shrubs can go in whenever the ground isn't frozen.

SOUTH AND ISLANDS

A mild, wet winter: this is planting season. Peas and broad beans can be sown direct (if you didn't sow them in autumn), and lettuces and onions planted out. Frost is rare but not unknown inland.

Jobs this month

Protecting plants from the cold

Hardy plants cope with cold; what kills them is cold combined with wet roots, or a frozen pot. Roots in a container are far more exposed than in the ground: an olive that survives -8°C in the garden can suffer at -3 or -4°C in a small pot.

Raise pots onto feet and group the tender ones against a sheltered house wall. Protecting plants from frost ›
Keep fleece handy for potted citrus, olives, bay and cycads on nights forecast below -3°C. Protecting plants from frost › KumquatOliveBaySago palm
Shake snow off evergreens and hedges before branches split.
Under cover, water bougainvillea, plumbago and lantana very sparingly and ventilate on mild days. Overwintering tender plants › BougainvilleaPlumbagoLantana

Winter pruning

Deciduous trees and shrubs are dormant: you can see their structure clearly and cut without losing any flowers. Hold off, though, on spring-flowering shrubs such as forsythia and mock orange, which are pruned after flowering, and on olives, which in the centre and north are pruned from late winter once the hard frosts are over.

Prune apples and pears: remove dead, diseased and crossing wood, then thin out overcrowded fruiting spurs. Pruning an apple or pear tree › Crab applePear
Cut the side shoots of wisteria back to two or three buds from the main framework. Pruning wisteria (the twice-yearly technique in detail) › Wisteria
Don't prune plums, cherries or apricots now: winter cuts invite diseases such as silver leaf and bacterial canker. Ornamental cherry
In the centre and south you can already prune grapevines; in the north it's better to wait until February. Grape vine

Houseplants in winter

Low light and dry central heating are the two stresses of January for houseplants. Nearly all of them want far less water than in summer.

Water only when the surface of the compost is dry, and empty the saucer after 20 minutes. Watering plants in pots ›
Move plants closer to the brightest windows, but not right against cold glass at night.
Keep amaryllis and forced bulbs in full light and turn the pot so the stems grow straight. Forcing bulbs for indoors › AmaryllisHyacinth
Cymbidiums, clivias and orchids in flower last longer somewhere cool and bright. CymbidiumCliviaMoth orchid

Vegetable garden and orchard

In the north the vegetable plot is almost at a standstill; in the south you are harvesting and sowing. Everywhere, January is the month to order seeds and plan your crop rotation.

Plant bare-root fruit trees and soft fruit whenever the soil is workable. Bare-root planting › Crab appleFlowering currantRaspberry
Harvest cabbages, fennel, chard and leeks. Chard
In the south, sow peas and broad beans direct and plant out onions and lettuces. Propagation: sowing seed › PeaOrnamental alliumLettuce
Sow chillies and sweet peppers indoors in the warm (at least 20–25°C). Sowing in trays under cover › Chilli pepper

Sow and plant

Sow
  • Chillies and sweet peppers indoors, in the warm
  • Sweet peas in deep pots, under cover
  • South: peas, broad beans and lettuces direct
  • Snapdragons on the surface of the compost, under cover
Plant out
  • Bare-root trees, roses and hedging (soil not frozen)
  • Soft fruit
  • South: onions, garlic and lettuces
  • Amaryllis in pots, indoors

Watch out for

Frost damageBlackened, collapsed leaves on tender plants after a clear night. Don't cut the damaged parts off yet: they protect the buds beneath until spring.WaterloggingPots standing in full saucers and plants rotting at the neck, especially succulents and Mediterranean herbs outdoors.Scale insects on overwintering citrusSmall brown scales on stems and leaves and sticky honeydew on citrus brought into the house or a veranda.

Questions

Can I plant in January?

Yes – bare-root trees, shrubs, roses and hedging can go in whenever the soil is neither frozen nor waterlogged. In the south January is one of the best months for planting; in the north it's often better to wait until February or March.

Should I cut back frost-damaged plants?

Not yet. Damaged leaves and stems shield the buds underneath from further frosts. Wait until spring, when new growth shows you where the live wood starts.

At what temperature do citrus need protecting?

Potted lemons and oranges suffer below 0 to -2°C; mandarins and kumquats hold out a little longer. In the north they need a bright, cool place (5–10°C), not a warm living room.