he winter months provide the perfect time to tend to certain woodland and garden cleanup tasks difficult to dispense with during the growing season. There are reliably a handful of terrific warm days during these early months of the year and trees are bare and underbrush is at a minimum. Look for green. You’ll see it in conifers, of course, but you’ll also see it in some of the most offensive of the invasive plants—Japanese honeysuckle and English ivy. Go forth with a sharp knife or some really good pruning shears and a weed knife/grubber. Ripping out English ivy is relatively easy and even Japanese honeysuckle tends to yield readily now. What you can’t pull, snip or slash; then grub out as much of the plant root system as you can. Mark the area you worked with a flag or other kind of marker—even spray paint will do the job. In the spring you’ll know at the earliest signs of growthwhere to go back and spray with a weed killer so your hard work doesn’t get undone by a surge of spring growth.

My bad. I’ve got 50 tulips bulbs that I picked up on sale in November and they’re still sitting in my garage waiting to be planted. Is it too late? I noticed some of them have started to produce roots and shoots. Could I salvage them by forcing them in pots, like those pretty tulips you see in the supermarket in March?

The issue is twofold: Are the bulbs any good and will they have enough time to grow into flowers? On the first issue, you’ll have to make the call. Pick up the bag/box the bulbs are stored in. Is it relatively light for the volume of bulbs, or is it good and heavy? Bulbs aspirate and lose massive amounts of moisture very quickly, which will reduce their lifespan, not to mention their viability. Next, check for mold; if they are stored in less-than-ideal conditions, excess moisture will induce fungal growth. Finally, have they been feasted on by rodents?

Those bulbs that feel solid—not squishy or dried out, and are free of nibbles or mold—can still go into the ground. Most of the ones that are already rooting ’n’ shooting will be part of that group. If the ground is not frozen and is workable—but not too wet—get them in ASAP. Seriously, like yesterday. They still have a good chance to root, sprout, and grow, though they’ll bloom late, compared to bulbs that went in the fall. If the ground is frozen or too wet, you can plant them in pots, in ordinary potting soil, available from any hardware store. Leave the pots outdoors. Forcing bulbs can be a tricky business for varieties that aren’t specifically developed for that purpose. You can hasten things a bit if you want by bringing the pots indoors in March, which will nudge the tulips into an April bloom. One caveat: regardless of whether they bloom inside or out, as late as it is, you should not expect every single bulb to produce a flower. But if they grow vigorously this spring, they should reward you with a bloom next year.

When should I be pruning my fig tree?

Anyone who still doesn’t believe that fig trees grow especially well in the Piedmont should take a look at the massive figs at Monticello. Figs aren’t trees so much as large shrubs, usually with many dozens of stalks coming from one central crown. The sweetest and most flavorful figs each year grow on the old wood—that is to say, woody stalks at least one year old. Every spring, the fig tree will send up whips or slender stalks, often many more dozens, in the same manner as, say, lilacs. These will produce small buttons of fruit, which mature a monthor two after the first harvest on the old wood. Thus it’s not uncommon to be picking figs from August through mid-November.

Pruning is important: primarily to keep figs from getting too large and dense to be easily harvested, but also for the tree/shrub’s overall health. It happens occasionally—every fifth or sixthwinter in my experience—that a cold snap will come along killing back much if not all of the older growth, leaving a forlorn-looking fig bush in the spring, sometimes dead from the ground up. This is a type of pruning, though not as desirable as when the gardener can pick and choose what to cut. Generally, refrain from pruning until spring, and then stick to lopping off new stalks as they crowd out older ones. Remove any old wood that’s been killed back by winter—easily recognizable as it dries out quickly and is obviously brittle compared to pliable living stalks. But avoid pruning any living—and productive—older stalks. If these must be pruned for shape or to alleviate density, do so right after they’ve yielded their delicious fruits, in early fall.