A Gardener's Thoughts & Fancies

The Monthly Gardner – March

March and April are the ideal times to get your garden planted. This includes most summer annuals and perennials, warm-season and cool-season lawns, some cool-season and warm-season vegetables, and almost all permanent garden plants, such as trees, shrubs, ground covers and vines. But I would hold off planting tropicals for a couple of months until [...]

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The Monthly Gardner – October

October, with its cooler days and the occasional sprinkle (our Southern California “rainy season” actually begins in November), is the ideal time to plant most perennials, with the exception of tropicals, which should be planted in late spring or early summer, and bare-root plants, which should be planted in January. The reason is simple: get [...]

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The Monthly Gardener – September

Our New Blog Because a number of my readers have asked, “What should I be doing with my garden this month?” I’ve decided to start a monthly blog post that deals with just that –– what you should be focusing on in your garden during that particular month. I thought September was a great starting [...]

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Did You Know … Perennials Aren’t For Sissies!

People often ask me to design an “easy-care” garden full of perennials — but that’s an oxymoron. Perennials aren’t easy, they’re complicated, and many plants called perennials such as salvia, geranium, pelargonium, lantana and lavender don’t live forever. Also, it’s often impossible to teach hired gardeners how to care for them since each one requires [...]

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