10 Gardening Activities for November in Northern California

1. Clean Garden Beds

This is the time of year to remove spent flower heads if you’re not letting them go to seed. Removed any dead foliage from plants like hostas, lamb’s ears, heuchera, and other perennials. Cut back any dead or diseased branches from trees and shrubs. However, avoid heavy pruning because it will stimulate new growth that won’t be strong enough to handle freezing temperatures over winter—this is better left for spring. If you have fruit trees, pick up and dispose of any fallen fruit before it rots to help prevent disease and pest issues.

2. Add Color with Annuals

Cool-season annuals such as pansies, calibrachoa, nemesias, or violas are an easy way to add color to your garden beds in the fall. These annuals add instant color to the garden because they are often already covered in flowers when you purchase them at a nursery. Plant annuals wherever you have space—garden beds, containers, hanging baskets. Because there are so many color options, flowering annuals can be paired with ornamental grasses and plants with interesting foliage (heuchera, coleus, etc.) to create a color-themed garden in shades of orange, purple, pink, red, yellow, and more.

3. Leave Your Leaves or Compost Them

It’s often best to leave your leaves where they fall. A layer of leaves acts as a mulch for garden beds which helps retain soil moisture and protect roots from cold weather. The leaves also add nutrients back into the soil and provide habitat for beneficial insects. If your beds are overflowing with leaves, then consider using a leaf mulcher. Using a leaf mulcher will reduce the volume of the leaves at a ratio of 11 to 1. Once mulched, you can reapply leaves to soil in garden beds or add them to the compost pile. Learn more about composting.

4. Pot Some Trees

Japanese maples, citrus trees, olives, crape myrtles, tree ferns, and many other trees look gorgeous when planted in containers. Just be sure that your container is large enough so the tree doesn’t tip over. It’s also important to make sure there’s proper soil amendment to keep the tree nourished. Typically, you want a container that’s at least 10 to 15 gallons. Be sure that your containers have holes at the bottom for drainage and that you put a layer of drainage gravel or broken terra cotta at the bottom of the pot so holes don’t get clogged with soil.

5. Cut Back on Watering as Rain Increases

As rain increases in the fall, cut back on your watering. If rain is consistent, consider turning off your irrigation system during the fall and winter months. If you’re worried about plants or lawns getting enough water, dial back the irrigation to a weekly or bi-weekly deep watering. There are also rain sensors that can be attached to your current irrigation system as well as smart sprinkler controllers such as the Rachio 3 that automatically adjust watering schedules based on rain and weather. They're easy to use and can be controlled from a smart phone.

6. Clean and Store Garden Tools

No one likes rusty tools that don’t work right. It’s best to clean tools after each use, but even just performing annual maintenance before you put your tools away for the fall and winter months will help keep them functioning at their best and extend their working life. Tools that have a blade such as loppers, shears, and pruners should all be cleaned with rubbing alcohol to kill any diseases left from pruning (this should really be done after each use, too). Once clean, sharpen blades with a sharpening tool. For any tool with a wood handle that has splinters or rough spots, sand it and rub it with linseed oil. This will help restore the wood and protect it from the elements. Shovels, rakes, hoes, and spades can all be washed with soap and water to remove any soil. Scrub with a steel brush. Sharpen bent or dull edges of shovels, hoes, and spades using a file. You can also coat the metal with a vegetable-based spray to help prevent rust (this type of spray is better than a petroleum-based spray, especially if you’ll be using the tool in a vegetable garden). Learn more about regular and annual garden tool maintenance.

7. Plant Bulbs in Indoor Containers

If you want to have an interesting display that’s different than the typical poinsettia, then buy bulbs to plant indoors. Bulbs planted in containers make terrific centerpieces at the table. In particular, amaryllis, crocus, daffodils, grape hyacinths, hyacinths, paperwhites, muscari, and tulips all work well when grown indoors—just make sure to pre-chill them. You can buy pre-chilled bulbs in bulk from suppliers such as Brent and Becky's Bulbs. Get lessons on forcing indoor bulbs from garden blogger, Kevin Lee Jacobs.

8. Stock Up on Houseplants

When wet weather comes and you’re indoors more often, it’s wonderful to have a collection of houseplants by your side. Houseplants add humidity to the indoor air and are great mood boosters, especially when it’s gloomy outside. There’s an ever-growing list of online retailers supplying houseplants but here are a few good resources: Breck's, Gardener's Supply, or Burpee. If you already have as many houseplants as you think you can handle, fall is a great time to clean them and give them a thorough watering. Learn more about two popular, easy-to-grow houseplants: philodendron and snake plant.

9. Harvest Produce

If you’ve been growing edible crops such as sweet potatoes, beets, peppers, winter squash, lettuce, broccoli, and many other cool-season crops, then you can harvest them this month. Harvesting fruit that’s still on fruit trees is also an important gardening task this month. Fruit that should be ripe: apples, persimmons, pomegranates, mandarins, and avocados (Bacon, Fuerte, Santana, and Zutano varieties).

10. Get Your Holiday Décor

Branch out this season by decorating with dried stems, preserved leaves, or gorgeous dried wreaths. You can purchase individual stems as well as complete wreaths from Terrain. You can also make your own seasonal wreaths using conifer greens or other plant material straight from your garden. Check out this step-by-step article on how to build a wreath from Floret.

Also see some of our favorite holiday decor ideas.