What’s Happening In My Garden
There are slideshows with pictures of seasonal garden tasks in Wild Suburbia below the following list. Check out my book, Wild Suburbia – Learning to Garden with Native Plants (available for free download), for more gardening information. Pictures of my garden and the South Pasadena Nature Park can be found on my Wild Suburbia Instagram feed:
Gardening Tasks by Season
- PLANTING SEASON (November through February)
- Weed out petty and garden spurge, oxalis, nasturtium, other weeds, and excess wildflowers (especially sunflowers)
- Pick, purchase and plant native plants
- Harvest, eat and give away avocados, lemons and limes.
- Sow wildflower seeds (unless you are all full up)
- Grow and enjoy lettuce, Swiss chard, spinach, sugar snaps, snow peas, etc.
- Make monkey flower cuttings
- Do not forget to deep water trees and shrubs if rain is sparse
- FLOWER SEASON (March through June)
- Rake deergrass and alkali sacaton early in the season
- Remove weeds before they set seed
- Start removing spent wildflowers including nasturtium; continue as wildflowers go to seed; leave some seeds for the birds and collect some for use next year
- Attend garden tours, and enjoy spring wildflowers
- If rain was sparse, water trees deeply
- Check automated sprinklers, sprinkler heads, etc.; set up automated drip irrigation for tomatoes; check drip and soaker hoses for leaks
- Plant tomatoes
- DORMANT SEASON: EXTREME HEAT, NO RAIN (July through October)
- Tidy up garden; remove remaining annual wildflowers
- Deep water nonnative parkway trees, citrus and avocados
- Harvest herbs, tomatoes, and other veggies
- Check irrigation, set timer in vegetable garden to water early morning on every second or third day
- Cut back dormant needlegrass, deadhead Cleveland sage, prune wild grape from trees
- Prune young oak trees for structure (August, September)
- Remove weeds, especially Bermuda grass and spurge
- Remove tomato plants, sow edible peas, prepare beds for upcoming planting season for vegetables
- Cut back sage, monkey flowers, gooseberry, etc.
- Plan and prepare beds for upcoming planting season for native plants
