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A Gardener's Notebook: The latest incarnation of my column detailing the trials and tribulations of my garden. Join the list and ask your own questions about gardening Subscribe

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This week brought 2 welcome days of soft and steady rain. We're sure to return to the heat of the past few weeks, though. Our California Summer is not through with us yet. In fact, the months of October and November can be the worst of all for fire danger in our tinder dry hills. The rain will certainly help but nothing, but the yearly monsoon of December, January, and February can truly put this year's danger behind us.

This is all just part of the passage of the year that our gardens help us to mark. I find that I'm much more in tune with the passage of the days when I am spending time in the garden. The arrival of bulbs sprouting in the flower beds gives me a clear indication that the rains are almost upon us. They have sprouted here first since these beds are irrigated, but soon snowdrops, paper whites and daffodils will jump up everywhere to greet the coming Winter.

The roses are slowing their blooming and growth, probably offering up one more bloom cycle before their yearly pruning in January. I gave them one last feeding this week and the fortuitous rains "watered in" the fertilizer for me. It is unusual for my timing to be so good, but I take these happy coincidences as encouragement that I might finally be gaining a little understanding about how my garden grows.

Settling In

I am happy to report that the new plantings installed for last month's baby shower are all doing well. Most are showing new growth and appear to be rooting well. The winter rains will help get these perennials ready for a big growth spurt as the days lengthen in the Spring.

During the busy days of preparing for this party, a good friend, now a close neighbor, dropped off a boxful of cuttings from her rampant Purple Tongue groundcover. With the other preparations I was undertaking I only had time to stick a few of the cuttings into some lightly worked soil and water them in. Nearly all of these have survived and it looks as if they might fill in this small bed behind out garage without any further tending from me. This is my type of gardening. A little work for a good return.

Covering up

The one major project I hope to accomplish before the holiday rush hits is the addition of as much groundcover planting as I can accomplish. The time has come to fill in the bare spots and start converting the gravel paths into something more easily maintained. Several magazines have offered a wide variety of plants, now it is up to me to take their good advice and turn it into action. I want to make every effort to make this Winter and the greenest and most colorful of the 5 years we have lived here. Any and all recommendations are highly appreciated.

Check out the web

There is a wide variety of gardening calendars available on the web and, most likely, there is one for your specific neck of the woods. Below I have provided a few links to those calendars that I have come across in my regular web travels. You can also use your favorite web search engine to locate information for your specific state or zone.

If you have a favorite gardening web site, send a message the AGN mailing list and share it with your fellow readers. I will also highlight them on my web site.

Gardener's Paradise Gardening Tips

Al's Gardening Guide

Oregon State University Extension Service

Purdue University Garden Calendars

Google Search Results

I hope as we enter this last quarter of the year that your wishes and hopes for your gardens have been achieved. Sometimes I find the pursuit of our dreams in our gardens is often as enjoyable as the actual achievement of them.

Keep digging…

Douglas

What was happening a year ago (or more) in my garden? September 26, 1999 On the Autumnal Equinox September, 1996 Fighting The Scorching Sun and Opossom Links