For The Union-Tribune

How’s your fall planting going? This is our best planting time of the year for everything from trees to leafy greens to wildflower seeds. Do your homework, plan your schedule, then get gardening!

Plan first

Find inspiration from photos of beautiful waterwise gardens and plants in my latest book, Hot Color, Dry Garden at waterwisegardener.com/books.

Start the season by taking the time to plan. A plan helps you save time, money and ensures your most successful garden.

Make a drawing first. It doesn’t have to be fancy or precise, just good enough to allow you to map out how much space there is, where pathways, pools and patios are located, how much space there is for plants, and what plants will fit the space.

Use your drawing to make a shopping list of plants and supplies to pick up at the nursery.

Start the season by taking the time to plan. A plan helps you save time and money and ensures your most successful garden. (Adobe Stock)

Make a plan:

• Make a “base plan.” Measure your property with a tape measure or the measuring app on your smart phone. Plot it on grid paper (one grid square = 1 square foot) or one of the many layout and graphic apps on your computer or tablet.

• If you are drawing on paper, cover the base plan with tracing paper to draw on with a pencil.

• For digital designs, make a copy of your digital base plan and use that to test out designing different plant combinations and other garden elements.

Make sure the new plants fit the spaces available in your garden both in terms of height and width. Avoid common mistakes:

• Putting a plant in a space that isn’t wide enough. A plant that grows to 10 feet wide planted in a 5-foot-wide space means the new plant will eventually grow into surrounding plants or pathways or structures. Instead, find a plant that matures to the width of the space.

• Putting a plant in a space that isn’t tall enough. A 12-foot-tall plant will block the view and light through a low window. Instead, measure the space between the ground and where the window starts. Match that height to the mature plant height.

• When plants grow wider and/or taller than what there’s room for, the plant — and you — are doomed to forever pruning. That wastes time, money, effort — and results in a plant that always looks stunted and ugly.

• Planting trees in lawn. The two kinds of plants have completely different water needs. Trees planted in lawns develop shallow, weak roots and can fall over after a good rainstorm. Trees also shade out and crowd out the grass planted beneath them.

• Planting trees too close to underground pipes, sidewalks, foundations, driveways, etc. Find the sweet spot where the tree is close enough to shade your home, yet far enough so roots won’t cause problems. Find ratings of root damage potential at selectree.calpoly.edu.

For every plant that you consider, make sure your garden matches its needs for:

• Sun/shade

• Soil

• Irrigation

Have a slope? Think of it as a garden at an angle. Plant with a combination of trees, shrubs, and low growing plants. Bigger, woody plants grow the deep roots that hold slopes in place.

DON’T USE ARTIFICIAL TURF. Artificial turf does not mix well with living plants. It heats up hotter than asphalt, requires regular washing, releases microplastics into the environment, sprouts weeds, and has none of the advantages of living plants. Artificial turf wears out quickly and ends up in the landfill, even if it is labeled as “recyclable.” Landscape rebate programs do not permit artificial turf installations, and concerns about “forever chemicals” have cities across California banning installation.

DON’T USE LANDSCAPE FABRIC/WEEDCLOTH.

• Adds unnecessary costs to your project.

• Doesn’t stop weeds.

• Stops water from penetrating into the soil. Soil, then, turns hard as concrete, killing the critically important beneficial organisms that help your plants stay healthy and strong.

• Causes plants installed through the fabric to struggle rather than thrive.

• Breaks down within a few years, shredding to the point where you have to remove it (more costs).

• Releases microplastics into the environment.

Start small. While large plants in the nursery might catch your eye, of for the smallest ones instead. They grow fastest, strongest, and outpace larger plants of the same kind within just a few years. And smaller plants are more affordable.

Shop at your local independent nursery. If they don’t have what you want in stock, ask them to order it for you.

Ornamentals

Roses: Dispose of this year’s fallen leaves. Prepare to prune and spray in December and January.

If a seed mix says it’s a “wildflower” mix, that doesn’t mean the seeds are native to our region. Check the list to make sure the wildflowers are California wildflowers like California poppies, elegant clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata), large flowered phacelia (Phacelia grandiflora), tidy tips (Laia platyglossa), baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii), California goldfields (Lasthenia californica), blue field gilia (Gilia capitata) and others.

How to plant annual wildflower seeds:

• Choose a large area in full sun

• Rake soil smooth, then water to saturate the soil.

• Put the seeds into a one-pint plastic container, then mix in construction sand. Add 10 parts sand to one-part seeds.

• Sprinkle the seed/-sand mix over the seedbed.

• Rake soil gently so seeds are just barely buried.

• Water again, with a very soft spray so the soil is wet enough to settle it around seeds.

• Continue to water every few days (unless it rains) to keep the soil, seeds, and young seedlings damp until they sprout and have two sets of true leaves.

• Plant every kind of permanent plant now, including trees, shrubs, perennials, vines, and more. Consider the following.

Waterwise vines, including:

• Yellow butterfly vine (Mascagnia macroptera), a fast-growing vine that reaches 15 to 20 feet and features beautiful, orchidlike yellow flowers that become butterflylike seed pods.

• Mexican flame vine (Pseudogynoxys chenopodioides), a gorgeous, smallish vine (to 10 feet) covered in deep orange, daisylike flowers.

• Native morning glory vine (Calystegia macrostegia) if you long for a morning glory but know not to plant the highly invasive blue morning glory (Ipomea indica), this is the vine for you. The flowers are soft pink and prolific, the vine looks best in a rustic garden.

Succulents, including:

• Native chalk dudleya (Dudleya pulverulenta), whose waxy, blue-green rosettes look like giant heads of lettuce growing on the vertical cuts along highways throughout San Diego County. Take a clue from how they grow to plant these beauties adjacent to rocks and at an angle to keep water from accumulating in the center of the leaves.

• Mangave, the trendy, colorful offspring of Agave crossed with Manfreda. Some of the rosette-shaped varieties are spotted (‘Mint Chocolate Chip, ‘Spotty Dotty’), striped (‘Navaho Princess’ ‘Snow Lion’), almost all purple (‘Mission to Mars’, ‘Blazing Saddles’), and more. Grow these like you would any common Agave.

Prune

Prune ornamental trees in the cooler weather. Hire an insured, licensed, certified arborist who is on site with the crew while they work.

Never, ever top a tree. If a tree is too tall, replace it with one that matures shorter.

Prune summer and spring flowering shrubs now, before new flower buds form. If you wait too long, you’ll cut off the buds and lose next season’s flowers.

Prune fig trees. Their wood is surprisingly soft and easy to cut. Keep trees short so fruits are in easy reach.

Cut back geraniums, starting with long, scrambly growth. Cut branches back to where you see new leaves forming. Plants will soon form flower buds that will open in spring.

Prepare for winter rains

Clean out rain gutters. Add the stuff that comes out of the gutter to your compost pile or use it to mulch ornamental (not edible) garden beds.

Protect bare hillsides from erosion by covering in jute netting (aka “erosion control cloth) and/or stretching straw-filled wattles horizontally across slopes. Plant through the jute. While jute and straw decompose after a year or so, wattle mesh is usually plastic, so it eventually needs to be retrieved.

Cover Plumeria with frost cloth or move them under the eaves when nighttime temperatures drop below 35 degrees. Stop watering Plumeria once the leaves fall off. Resume watering only once new leaves appear in spring.

Move containers of cold sensitive succulents and tropical plants under the eaves or under a patio cover to protect them from cold.

Cover cold sensitive in-ground plants with floating row cover. Hold the fabric in place with small clamps or clothespins. Local farm and irrigation supply stores sell floating row cover by the roll or by lengths.

Refresh mulch to maintain a 3- to 4-inch-thick layer — rock mulch for succulents, woody mulches for all nonsucculent ornamentals.

Irrigate

Now that the weather is cool, the sun is low in the sky and days are shorter, plants need irrigation far less often. Reduce the frequency to half as often as in summer or even less often (don’t water for a week or two after rain). Don’t change irrigation run time, always water for the same number of minutes, no matter how often you water.

Figure out how often to irrigate using my Irrigation Canary Test. Download it here bit.ly/44xM5Wv.

Once rains start, turn off irrigation altogether. If we get normal, regular rains, leave your irrigation off until March.

Install a Wi-Fi “smart” weather-based irrigation controller. These controllers calculate watering schedules for each garden irrigation zone based on the type of soil, type of plants, etc. Set up and monitor the controller with an app on your smart phone and/or computer. Learn about controller rebates at socalwatersmart.com/en/residential.

Fruit trees

Fertilize citrus and avocado just as the rains begin. Use organic, granular citrus and avocado food. Follow label directions

Wonder why your oranges are sour? With citrus, color can be misleading. Oranges turn orange before they sweeten up. Limes ripen yellow. Do regular taste tests to figure out when each kind of citrus tastes best.

Strip lingering leaves off deciduous fruit trees (those that go dormant in winter) by month’s end. Collect all fallen leaves and put them in the greenwaste unless you hot compost.

Get ready to prune and spray stone fruit, apple, and pear trees in December and January. My favorite sprayer is the Ryobi 2-gallon battery-powered sprayer. It is easy to use and makes a many-hour task into one that takes only an hour or two. The convenience is 100% worth the investment.

Plan now for new bare root fruit trees along with grapes, berries, and other fruits you’ll want to buy at your local independent nursery in January.

Plant subtropical fruit trees like citrus and avocado. Inland, wait for spring for to plant bananas, mango, and other cold-sensitive fruits.

Keep all fruit trees at least 15 feet away from vegetable beds. Fruit-tree roots seek out moisture and quickly invade vegetable beds, leaving no room for vegetable seedlings.

Vegetable gardens

This is a great time to build a new vegetable garden. The best location is in a flat area close to your kitchen, in full day sun, and with a close by source of water.

Harvest sweet potatoes early in the month and let them cure in a hot, dry spot so they are ready for Thanksgiving

Remove summer vegetable plants (eggplant, tomato, pepper, etc.) and put the plants into greenwaste (don’t compost). Commercial green waste processing heats up to destroys residual pests and diseases.

Amend existing planting bed with compost, worm castings, and all-purpose vegetable fertilizer. Mix in any straw mulch from last season.

Plant now from seed or seedlings leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, and chard; cabbage family plants including broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts; legumes like peas, edamame, fava beans; onions family plants like chives, garlic, leeks, shallots, and onions, of course!

Direct seed root crops into garden beds: radishes, beets, carrots, rutabaga, and turnips.

If you don’t plant winter vegetables, plant cover crops. Cover crops are “green manure” that grow through winter. Some improve soil texture, others add nitrogen, and so on. Six weeks before you plant your spring garden, turn the cover crop plants into the soil so their roots, stems and leaves can break down and amend the soil.

Events

Reserve your spot for November’s Third Thursday webinar, Growing California Native Plants Gardening Webinar with Nan Sterman, at 7 p.m. on Nov. 21. Sign up at bit.ly/canatives.

Find more Southern California-focused gardening webinars at waterwisegardener.com/shop.

It’s not too early to plan for your spring garden. Watch for the announcement of my 2025 Seed Starting Course Black Friday sale!

Sterman is a garden designer, journalist and the host of “A Growing Passion” on public television. She runs Nan Sterman’s Garden School at waterwisegardener.com.