Tony's Tips - January 2026
January is mid-summer and right in the heart of the growing season. With warmer days and warm soil, many plants truly come into their own and quite a few absolutely thrive on the heat.
Now is a wonderful time to plant favourites like Jacarandas, Crepe Myrtles, Buffalo and Kikuyu lawns, Plumbago, Bougainvillea, Vinca and Gardenias. These sun-lovers much prefer being planted into warm soil rather than shivering through a cold, wintry start, and they’ll reward you with stronger growth and better results.
Many perennials also benefit from a mid-season prune. A light tidy-up now helps stimulate fresh growth, encourages more flowering through to winter, and allows plants to cope better with summer heat. Rather than looking tired and scrappy by autumn, they’ll stay lush and vibrant for months to come.
Over the next couple of months, keep an eye out for some standout performers, especially the new heat-tolerant, drought-tolerant Echinacea. These hardy perennials produce spectacular, brilliantly coloured cone flowers from summer right through into autumn.
Echinacea Orange |
Echinacea Fuchsia
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Things to Do:
1. It’s time to prune
Prune traditional hydrangeas firmly (hedge clippers are fine!) before Australia Day. This helps them handle summer heat and encourages earlier, more prolific flowering in spring and early summer, instead of patchy blooms in the hottest months.
2. Cut your perennials
Rejuvenate long-flowering perennials by pruning back by a third to a half (think Salvias, Gaura, Fuchsia and Geraniums).
Prune French lavender hard in January (but never to bare wood) while it’s resting, and English lavender after flowering, leaving some healthy foliage to fuel strong new growth for the cooler months ahead.
3. Treat your soil
If you haven’t already, apply a wetting agent followed by a good-quality mulch to help water penetrate the soil and reduce evaporation. Remember, plants don’t burn in the sun, their leaves dehydrate from lack of water.
4. Look after your roses
Once roses finish their second flush, give them a light trim and a feed to encourage the next round of blooms, setting them up for a third (and even fourth) flush this season.
5. Gardenias need love
Gardenias are flowering later this year. If pruning, do a light shape only (around 10%) and feed now (never hard prune). On hot days, water over the plant to boost humidity and mimic the monsoonal conditions they love.