Gardening Tips for November 2025

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• Annuals (or Perennials used as annuals) - Bellis perennis, Calendula, Chrysanthemum

             paludosum (nice white daisy flowers for winter), Primrose, Cyclamen.

• Shrubs- Early blooming Camellias, Cotoneaster, Weigela 'Variegata', Dodonaea visc.
• Trees- Shop early in the month for trees with great fall color, such as Japanese Maples and Persimmons. Have you ever smelled a Katsura Tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) in Fall? It smells like brown sugar!
• Veggies - Artichoke, Spinach (flat leaf varieties seem to attract less pests than the crinkled leaf varieties), Garlic and Shallots.
• Bulbs- Anemones, Ranunculus, Freesias, Camassia, and all spring blooming bulbs.
• Products- Neem oil concentrate or copper spray for dormant spraying later in winter. Frost cloth. Pump Sprayer with curved wand for getting under leaves. Straight wand pump sprayers cannot reach the underside of leaves in order to give full coverage of spray.

Do I Have to Rake Leaves?

• Bulbs – It’s getting a little late to buy bulbs but this also means you can save money because nurseries want to sell them quickly, usually at a discount. Buy them and get them in the ground or containers right away. See The Gardening Tutor Blog: Keeping Squirrels from Digging Up Bulbs.
• Planting - When planting spring flowering bulbs, place about a tablespoon of bone- meal in the bottom of planting hole. Mix the bonemeal with the soil, cover with a little soil and plant the bulbs. If you don’t want to use bonemeal, use slow release bulb fertilizer or compost. Plant garlic this month. Choose areas of the garden to plant bareroot plants later in winter. Prepare the soil in these areas now by watering and amending with compost. Also place a layer of compost on top of prepared area (at least 3 inches).   
• Dahlias - Let plants go dormant. If the soil is well draining, Dahlias do not need to be dug out for winter here in Sonoma County. Once most of the stems have turned brown, cut Dahlias to the ground. Sometimes it’s a good idea to mark where Dahlias are in the garden as a reminder so no accidental shoveling through the tubers happens.  
• Fertilizing: Cool-season annual plants, such as Pansies, Iceland Poppies, and other winter bloomers will appreciate all purpose liquid fertilizer (Mary uses Maxsea) once a month all winter. Once the plants are large and flowering well, switch to bloom fertilizer. Remember to deadhead winter blooming annuals to keep them blooming and not going to seed. Add a one to three inch layer of compost to container plantings.  
• Mulch: A three inch layer of compost used as mulch also fertilizes plants in addition to being a weed suppressant, keeping soil a little warmer in winter, and preventing erosion from rain. Bark as mulch does not fertilize plants and can even prevent plants from taking up nutrients due to carbon binding. Compensate for that by adding compost around plants before adding the bark or move the bark that is already there from around each plant, add compost and place bark back on top of compost. Within 6 inches of plants taper the compost and/or bark to half an inch.
• Pest Management: Fruit trees- Pick up all fallen fruit and remove old fruit from the tree to help manage insect and fungal pests. Many pests overwinter in the soil. Save money and get better coverage for spraying soil and/or plants by using a pump sprayer to apply Neem oil concentrate instead of using small spray bottles of premixed Neem. Remove and discard older annual plants, such as ornamental cabbage when they start to attract lots of aphids or, if the plants still look good, use use a strong stream of water to wash off aphids or use insecticidal soap (must land on the insect to kill it). Remember, weeds attract pests too.
• Irrigation: Dehydrated plants are more susceptible to frost damage (succulents excepted). Watering the garden continues until rains arrive in earnest. Also, check to see which plants are living under the eaves of buildings. Once irrigation systems are turned off for winter those plants may not receive any water from rain and will need to be irrigated.  
• Weeds: Once the rains are here in earnest the annual cool-season weeds will return. Manage weeds before they go to seed. One of the best ways to manage weeds in planting beds is to apply a thick layer of compost as mulch.

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ALL CONTENT by Mary Frost (no AI).