Risa ... I did a google search on key words "southern california fall blooming plants" and got lots of interesting hits. The one below lists some flowers you may find useful. I was thinking Nandina [no flowers, but lovely, lacy redish foliage] which would look great as a taller background plant. Also using sweet alyssum as a low growing edging or ground cover. If you can find potted cosmos, please consider ... they are just lovely. Also consider butterfly bush as one of the larger plants at rear of planter. Also, if you just wander around a nursery with pen and pad ... write names that you like, size and price . Then at library with the Sunset book, make a chart of plant size from this list. Then on graph paper plot the whole area. Sounds like a lot of work, but so worth it. Having your whole family over in your new home ... how lovely! One last thing.... please get a cheap notebook and start a garden journal ... in my journal I have separate pages for roses, trees, etc. And then a chart for the garden area. Then month by month listings of jobs done. Here is a link that might be useful: Blooming plants for Oct. wedding

Sun Tan is a sign of stress too. ME I don't tan, I burn. But if I was designed for a arid environment, I would tan and I would be brown and beautiful but since I am from the way northern climes of Europe, I turn red, blister and burn. I think the colors on succulents are even better than the flowers most of the time. I love to stress them. That is how they groww where they come from. In nature, they go beyond pretty stress and get brown and crinkly on the lower leaves and still recuperate beautifully. It is a definite "habitat look" .

Harlequin Flower ⇢Sparaxis tricolor....

Blue Bayou and HU-525254581 and Embothrium, Wow, Thanks for all of your personal experience on the magnolias and helping me ID the Magnolia I grew from a twig! Getting personal gardening experience from all of you is great info and I learned a lot from all of you. And the cat knows everything, but he's not talk'n! Also the people at https://myperfectplants.com have been totally professional, and agree with all of you that the mail order magnolia did appear to be Little Gem and they are sending me a replacement tree. I was truly impressed with how nice they have been and how quickly they responded. I am a very satisfied customer and would recommend them highly to anyone wanting to buy from them. I'm going to give the poor Little Gem the best chance at life in zone 6b in Pittsburgh that I can and will be looking for a little microclimate in my yard, like HU-525254581 did. And blue bayou I saw how big the parent tree of my rooted twig was and I did give it room to grow! Glad to know I will have a big tree in ten years, I'm not so young anymore, and it has indeed been a fast grower!