November 2008 In the Garden
( If you are reading this anywhere but my blog, you can find the original post here. )
Life is good. Really. November in the Northstate Garden sums up everything I love about living and gardening here – rich colors, abundant flowers and edibles, perfect weather – yes, even the rain - and nice people. After this past season of fire, economic chaos and seemingly endless politics – November in the Northstate is nothing short of a miracle.
On a crisp November morning, stand with a warming sun shining down upon you –in the middle of the Sundial Bridge in Redding watch the anglers and school children indulging in the beauty of one of our mighty rivers. Walk through the dappled sunlight beneath the sheltering trees of Chico’s Bidwell Park bikers and morning parents with children going this way and that. Walk the Feather River Fish Ladder in Oroville to see the salmon and steelhead struggling to make their way home. Hike Mount Lassen or the Trinity Alps. Take the drive to Lake Almanor. The greater Northstate Garden is one of the best inspirations by far for our own Northstate Garden.
In my garden – the leaves are beginning to change, some further gone than others. Persimmons hang fat and iridescent on the branches – sweetening up with the cool nights. I am cutting back the dead and the spent, top-dressing my beds with compost mulch. Some of the compost is from my own compost bin and spreading that always feels satisfyingly self-sufficient. Some people are sad at this particular cutting back of the year, but for me it feels freeing, things have gotten a bit overgrown and it’s time. And while we Northstate gardeners get to enjoy all four seasons we also get to enjoy the fact that while some things are now entering winter dormancy, others are just breaking their summer dormancy. Don’t be too quick to cut back plants that are still actively flowering – on these cold-morning/warm afternoons days the pollinating bees, butterflies moths and hummingbirds are still very active and they will reward your patience.
The foothills have had their first frosts, but most of us on the valley floor have not. Roses, Dahlias, zinnias, salvias and gardenias bloom along. My first camellia is blooming, and I saw early narcissus in bloom at the arboretum in Davis recently. My basil seems to beg me to pull myself together and make pesto before the frost knocks beats me to it. Spring flowering bulbs I ordered sit waiting for me to have the time to finish planting them. Orange, red, green and white pumpkins and gourds decorate doorways and fence posts in the neighborhood. By then end of the month the holiday season will be fully upon us.
This weekend marks the falling back of our clocks and so the evenings will settle in earlier and the morning light will stretch out for just a bit longer.
Other Events for Northstate Gardeners this month include the This Way to Sustainability conference at CSU Chico November 6th through the 9th.
A rose selection pruning and care workshop on November 15th at the McConnell Arboretum and Gardens at Turtle Bay in Redding and a Botanical Thanksgiving Decoration Workshop at the Red Bluff Garden Center in Red Bluff on November 22.
Novembers full moon falls on the 13th and is variously known as the Hunter’s Moon and the Frosty Moon.
For a listing of events for gardeners in the Northstate in November, Click Here.