Fall is the Planting Season, but ….

Posted on September 30, 2021

Dear Garden lovers,

Fall is the best time to plant in CA!

The best to plant in the California is late fall, early winter when days are shorter, rain is coming, but the soil is still warm enough for roots to develop. The plant nurseries start their sales, some as much as 40-50% on certain items, so it is a great time to shop at retail. But you want a plan. So you want a landscape designer to help you and you start calling, looking up designers near you on the website. However, the phone rings, no one picks ups, you get automated email messages saying the schedule is full till 2022! Fall will be gone by!

You might be wondering why the calls are getting unanswered. The landscape industry has been very busy in 2021. Except the lull that happened early during the Covid-19 outbreaks, when home owners, renters all started spending time in their home and wanting to get some fresh air, looking at their gardens, they realized it could be so much more. Gardens as a place to feel peace, socially distance, heal. From designers to installers, everyone started getting calls and the schedules were fuller than ever. And now there is still a backlog that needs to be caught up to.

So what can you do when you know you need help, but help cannot be found till mid-winter???

What I can do now in the fall without a garden design?

Learn:

The landscape industry is busy. Maybe it is time for a career change? Come and join us by taking landscaping classes, becoming a member of APLD, starting out your own business? APLD has mentoring, training, camaraderie.

Too intense? There are classes that are open to homeowners. Take a look at the local community colleges and community centers or master gardeners or water-conservation related organizations to see what they have to offer:

https://bawsca.org/conserve/programs/classes
https://foothill.edu/hort/schedule.html
https://www.merritt.edu/lanht/courses/
https://campus.extension.org/course/view.php?id=1809

Soil and plants:

You can also use this great time to prepare your yard for planting:

Remove your lawn by sheet mulching. Check out these steps from Lyngso:

How to Sheet Mulch: A Comprehensive Guide

Plant cover crops to enrich the soilOrder fall-planting (but spring flowers) bulbs. Plant in containers for now. Or store in the refrigerator in the garage?

You can also try some veggie plants in containers to see what you like: Onions, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower are good for planting in the fall.

Visit:

Maybe visit a public garden to get ideas:

https://www.gamblegarden.org/visit-us/plan-your-visit/

https://arboretum.ucsc.edu/visit/admission-and-hours/index.html

San Diego Botanical Garden

Hakone Gardens

Hire and Buy:

It is also a good time to think about the health of your trees, prepare for winter pruning. Take a class or hire an aesthetic pruner from Aesthetic Pruners Association:

https://aestheticprunersassociation.org/

You can also check out the lawn removal, irrigation equipment upgrade type of rebates from local agencies. Applying for a smart irrigation controller rebate and installing it is not very hard:

https://www.valleywater.org/saving-water/rebates-surveys/landscape-rebates