The rain gives fall an assist
The glorious October rains did more for gardens than any fertilizer or irrigation, while making all of November’s gardening jobs and opportunities easier. Nothing soaks into the ground like natural rainfall, so plants are getting their first good drink in months. If you have already begun fall planting, your new plants are now “watered in,” gardening jargon for soils that are settled and recompacted by a thorough irrigation. If you have yet to start planting, the soil will be easy to dig for the first time since spring. But ...
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Don’t play in mud
After any rain, wait a few days to begin digging or even walking in garden beds, lest you pack the muddy soil into something resembling concrete (which will shed irrigations like a slicker). If you must walk into a garden bed while the ground is soaking wet, toss down a board to distribute your weight. But it’s better to wait a few days to a week (depending on soil type), until soils are wet but crumbly. Use the age-old squeeze test: When you squeeze a handful of soil into a ball, it should crumble into chunks. If it stays a ball of clay, it’s too wet to dig into.
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On with planting
This is the best season to plant just about anything except subtropicals such as bougainvillea, hibiscus and citrus. This is especially true of trees, shrubs and other basic, backbone garden plants. And it’s the only time to plant California natives. There are several good reasons to fall plant, and we just witnessed one -- free and thorough irrigations. It is the time of year when roots grow, so plants become well established by the time they start their burst of spring growth. It is also a much less stressful time for a plant to begin its new career in your garden. The sun is low, days are (mostly) cool and soils remain damp and nourishing for weeks.
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Banquets, bouquets
There’s another kind of fall planting: putting in things that bloom or mature in winter and spring but collapse at the onset of summer. These are the so-called cool season vegetables (such as broccoli, beet, carrot, cauliflower, garlic, lettuce and onion) and flowers (alyssum, calendula, English daisy, Iceland poppy, larkspur, pansy, snapdragon, stock, sweet pea, viola). Any can be planted this month. Don’t forget real and wannabe wildflowers sown as seed (California and corn poppies, baby blue eyes, clarkia, red flax).
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Greener pastures
If you want to turn your browning Bermuda grass lawn into the greenest thing this side of Ireland, overseed it now with annual rye. While Bermuda does best in hot weather, winter rye excels in cool, then disappears in late spring so the drought-resistant Bermuda can take over for summer. Sowing rye seed on top of Bermuda that has been raked hard and mowed short is a Southern California tradition. Lightly covering it with an organic product helps it germinate, but for the sake of the neighbors, avoid using steer manure. The newest wrinkle? Adding seed of perennial fescues to the rye to make it last longer.
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Divide to multiply
Near the end of November you can move small shrubs and perennials that are about as dormant as they get in our climate, or dig and divide perennials such as agapanthus, alstroemeria, daylily, lamb’s ear, true geranium, prunella and other plants that grow as a spreading clump of stems. It’s a good way to keep them in bounds, or to get more.
