California Gardener’s November Checklist

Take advantage of mild weather to cross garden chores off your list, plant natives and plan for fire safety

Lauren Dunec Hoang November 1, 2017

Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and in-house designer for Sunset's Editorial Test Garden. Her garden designs have been featured in the Sunset Western Garden Book of Landscaping, Sunset Western Garden Book of Easy-Care Plantings (cover), Inhabitat, and POPSUGAR.

Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and... More

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As planting season winds down for most of the country, California gardeners can enjoy what is often wonderfully mild weather — bright, warm days, some scattered rainfall and cooler evenings. Take advantage of the warmth and moisture by planting Mediterranean and California native plants, filling in bare areas with cool-season annuals or trying a cover crop.

In addition to the usual fall garden chores like leaf raking and cleanup, we’re also adding planning for fire safety to the top of this month’s list. Here are some ways you can help those in Northern California who have been affected by the recent fires there.

Not in California? Find your checklist here

Graphic from Cal Fire

Plan for fire safety. To reduce the risk of fire damage to your home and landscape in the future, take time now to assess where your property is vulnerable and make necessary changes.

Fire safety organizations recommend creating “buffer zones” around the house made up of hardscape and other nonflammable materials. If your property space allows, leave 30 feet on all sides of the house for Zone 1. In this area, rely on nonflammable hardscape materials and remove all dead or dry vegetation. Prune tree branches back at least 10 feet from the chimney.

Farther out from the house, in Zone 2, take steps to reduce the available fuel for a fire and prevent flames jumping from tree to tree or shrub to shrub. Mow dried ornamental grasses down to 4 inches, space shrubs at a distance of two to six times the shrubs’ height, and space trees 10 to 30 feet apart, depending on whether the property slopes.

Foundation Landscape Design

For smaller properties, adopt the same maintenance and planting strategies: Have a buffer of nonflammable materials around the home, reduce fuel sources for a fire and thin plants to prevent a fire from spreading.

Learn more about creating a fire-wise landscape

Rikki Snyder

Make a doorstep display. Give your entryway a boost for the season with a colorful container arrangement. If you don’t have time for potting, simply drop a nursery container of mums or other flowers into a larger container and top with preserved moss to hide the nursery pot. Once the mums are past their prime, you can set them aside for planting in the garden and fill the container with a conifer or another evergreen for the winter season.

Get Ready for Fall With a Touch of Nature at Your Door

J. Peterson Garden Design

Dial back irrigation. Cooler temperatures and more rainfall mean gardens require less supplemental water from now until spring. Reduce irrigation schedules or shut off irrigation entirely. Beds planted with California natives, succulents, low-water shrubs and trees, and ornamental grasses going into dormancy will require only occasional water between now and spring — hardly any if rain is consistent.

Oakley Gardens

Try fava beans. Like other nitrogen-fixing legumes, favas add nitrogen back into the soil, increasing fertility; they’re also a tasty cool-season crop. Plant them in a sunny area of the garden — such as beds where you’ve recently pulled out warm-season veggies — sowing the seeds 1 inch deep and 6 inches apart. Set up some stakes to support the plants, as they’ll grow to reach 3 to 4 feet tall and can flop over a bit. Once you’ve harvested the beans, cut down the plants and add them — leaves, stems and all — into the soil as a green manure.

Joni L. Janecki & Associates, Inc.

Plant California natives. Ceanothus (Ceanothus spp.) doesn’t have to look as wild in a garden setting as it does on California hillsides. Try training a plant as an espalier or in a fan shape against a wall, spreading the branches out along wires and keeping the plant clipped. In spring and summer when it blooms, it will be covered in classic lilac, pale cream, white or dark blue blooms.

Learn more about growing ceanothus

Debra Prinzing

Coast silktassel (Garrya elliptica) is another California native that works well growing against walls or trained as an espalier. For the most decorative show, buy a male plant — it will produce catkins up to 8 inches long in spring.

As with most California natives, both coast silktassel and ceanothus need excellent drainage. Both plants also grow best in full sun.

Learn about growing more California native plants

Dig Your Garden Landscape Design

Clean up perennials. Pull out dead leaves and rotting stems on plants like lamb’s ears (Stachys byzantina ‘Big Ears’), shown here, snow in summer (Cerastium tomentosum) and other perennials that are starting to look shabby. For plants like New Zealand flax (Phornium spp.), use this as an opportunity to reduce their size, cutting back outer strappy leaves all the way to the base.

Divide clumping perennials, such as asters, daylilies and yarrow, by digging up the root ball and gently cutting the plant into multiple smaller clumps, each with a few stalks and leaves, and then replanting the clumps.

Austin Ganim Landscape Design, LLC

Plant cool-season annuals. Tuck pansies, violas, and primulas into bare spots in garden borders, in containers, or along the edges of raised beds. Planted now from plant starts, the annuals will take advantage of the warm weather to get a jump-start on growth, filling in more quickly than if planted a month later. You’ll enjoy the blooms throughout winter and into spring.

Jocelyn H. Chilvers

Rake leaves or leave them be. Rake leaves off lawns and beds with small ground covers to prevent them from piling up, sitting too long and causing dieback.

At the end of the season, mow leaves that have fallen on the lawn and leave them right on the grass along with the grass clippings. Allow them to decompose over the winter, adding carbon and nitrogen back to the soil.

For areas beneath trees and shrubs, let the leaves stay where they fall to act as a natural mulch. The leaf cover effectively works like a cozy winter blanket, insulating the top layer of soil and helping to prevent frost damage to shallow roots and bulbs. Plus, as the leaves break down, they’ll help improve soil texture and promote beneficial soil microbes.

5 Ways to Put Fall Leaves to Work in Your Garden

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Not in California? Find your checklist here