Here’s the Dirt

Even if you’re not yet seeing all the colors of autumn, it may be time to put that green thumb to work--if not in the yard then online. The Web offers fertile ground for planning the perfect garden and finding out about plants, care and pests.

If you’re looking to establish--or just talk about--roots in a community, check out https://www.gardenweb.com to participate in forums and plant exchanges. The forums cover specific plants, types of gardens and various garden-related topics. The site’s calendar of events lists all kinds of goings-on in, say, Fullerton, Thousand Oaks and Glendora. The site also includes a plant database and an interactive glossary, which contains more than 2,100 terms relating to botany, gardening, horticulture and landscape architecture.

Plan your garden using landscape software and the plant finder at

https://www.garden.com. This way, if it’s less than what you envisioned, you can start over without having to spend hours digging anything up.

At Virtual Garden’s site, https://www.vg.com, you can identify what zone you’re in (Zone 9 for most Southern Californians) and get an area-appropriate list of things to do for the month. VG offers basics for those of us still green at gardening, along with weekend projects and other things.

There are several similar sites:

* https://www.backyardgardener.com includes designs for annual gardens.

* https://www.e-garden.co.uk/e-garden/Pages/default.html has a trouble-shooting guide, with hints on composting, for example.

* https://www.familygardening.com gives ideas for “little sprouts.”

* https://www.plantideas.com isn’t just about plants. Find out about building fences too.

* https://www.tropicalgardening.com offers suggestions on how to get exotic without really going anywhere.

If the only green you’re interested in is your lawn, check out https://www.allaboutlawns.com. The site provides tips on topics from fertilizing and care to problems with weeds, pests and pets. You can figure out the perfect type of lawn for your needs at https://gardening.sierrahome.com/tools/lawnselect.

If your cat’s a problem in the yard, you can nip that in the bud. Find out at https://www.gardenguides.com/articles/catnip.htm how you can get your cats, well, high on gardening by planting catnip, a perennial herb that felines go nuts over.

Interested in state flowers? At https://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/calflora/botanical.html, you can find details on all 8,375 plants. While you’re looking at local flora, check out https://www.digitalseed.com for a taste of Southland gardening.

OK, Wall Street boy, even if you’re only interested in growing the “green” in your portfolio, you can check out https://gardennet.com/gardenguidebook to find out about other people’s gardens to visit on your next vacation--next door or around the world.

For those stuck on cactus, https://www.arizonacactus.com/medicine.htm lists medicinal uses of seven basic plants.

Of course, you should plan to get your typing hands dirty to reap the benefits of what you plotted out in front of a computer, planted out in the yard.

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Got a topic you’d like us to explore or avoid? E-mail click.here@latimes.com. You can find previous Click Here columns at https://www.latimes.com/click.