Planning a Fall and Winter garden is both fun and satisfying. You may have some of these landscape elements already and want to maximize the total effect of the brilliant fall colors! Here are some ideas for adding a few new shrubs, trees, annuals or perennials that will make your garden the talk of the neighborhood and put a spark of color in your garden.

If you are installing new plants to provide fall and winter color, your first step is to bring the local soil up to a workable level. (See our Soil, Its Care and Improvement or Vegetable Gardening Care Guides). Either of these two guides will give you the information needed to provide a favorable and successful environment for your new transplants.

When we think of fall color, it is unusually associated with changes in fall foliage. The list of trees producing colorful leaves in fall is extensive but the downside is that only the deciduous trees produce the colorful leaves; which are soon dropped leaving bare limbs until the following spring.

Trees are a major component of the landscape and must be thoughtfully and carefully placed. Assuming all of these preparations have been made, following are some trees to consider for fall color in the Bay Area: Callery Pear; Japanese Maples (variety Sango-kaku has bright yellow fall leaves); Eastern Dogwood, Crape Myrtles, Ginkgo, Liquidambar Palo Alto; Chinese Pistache Frank Davies; and Chinese Tallow Tree. Eastern Maples and Easter Oaks have not been included because their color is not dependable in the Bay Area.

We have become evergreen obsessed in the Bay Area and believe all shrubs have to be green year around. They should also have flowers, be deer resistant and drought tolerant, not have invasive roots and have good fall color. But the point is that only deciduous shrubs will provide good fall color. And fall color among the shrubs can be extended to some deciduous, colorful fall plants: Autumn Salvias (Salvia elegans); Cotoneaster (berries); Yellow or Red Twig Dogwood (leaves and bark); Boston Ivy (leaves); Japanese Barberry (berries); Rugosa Roses (rose hips); Oak Leaf Hydrangea (leaves); Blueberries (leaves and bark); Spiraea (leaves); and Witch Hazel (flowers and leaves).

For those who need evergreen plants with fall and winter color, following are a few choices: Sasanqua Camellias; Sarcococca (fragrance); Gardenia Veitchii (flowers and fragrance); Viburnum Spring Bouquet (berries); Daphne (flowers, fragrance); Nandina Gulf Stream (foliage); Helleborus (flowers); Hardenbergia (flowering vine); and Pyracantha (berries).

In addition to trees and shrubs there are a handful of annuals and perennials which can be depended upon to provide fall and winter color. Among them: fibrous begonias, forget-me-nots, Iceland poppies, cinerarias, English primrose, fairy primrose, obconica (poison) primrose, stock, snapdragons, cyclamen, pansies and violas. It is important to plant these while the ground is still warm. If you wait until mid-or late October when the soil has cooled, these plants will just sit, semi-dormant until next spring.

Although sweet peas will not bloom until next spring, the seeds should be planted before the end of September. Prepare the soil as a narrow trench about 12 inches deep and sow two seeds per hole, one inch deep and about six inches apart. The seeds will sprout in the warm soil and as it becomes cooler, root growth will slow and top growth all but stop. Next spring when the air and soil warm up, the sweet peas will resume rapid growth and start to bloom by late March or April. During the cooler spring weather sweet peas will have up to 10 or 12 blossoms per stalk. As the weather warms, by June there may be only 4 or 5 blossoms per stalk and then the plant will die.

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A few weeks ago our feature article was Winter Vegetables (click on this link to read the article). Our Bedding Department has a huge variety of seedlings ready to grow in your garden. The following is a list of some of our favorite fall veggies. We have chosen these because they will provide you with a bounty of amazing flavor, sumptuous colors and incredible variety over a very long harvest season.

Kale--Try some of all kinds and find your favorite! We like Lacinato.

Spinach--So many kinds, so little space! Try a few and see what works best for you.

Swiss Chard--Bright Lights is so beautiful you will want to plant it in your ornamental beds. We like Bionda di Leon or Italian Chard for flavor and tenderness, and Orange, Yellow, Red and Pink types for variety and beauty.

Celery--Try Cutting Celery for year round harvests of leaves to use in sauces and soups, Golden for its tender beauty, Red just for the fun of it, and Utah if you want to try for the real thing!

Fennel--Fun to grow for its sweet, crunchy bulbs. When thinly sliced they are great in salads or braised with carrots and onions. Ohhh so good!

Collards--If you think you don’t like collards. . .think again! Try ours. If you are lucky enough to get a bit of frost in your area Collards become sweet as sugar! Steam or stir fry and get ready for a real treat. Amazingly long harvest, too.

Cabbage--Put in Red Express or Red Acre, Savoy Express or Perfection and Golden Acre for early, middle and late season harvests of both red and green cabbages. They hold well into late winter and are a welcome addition to the winter table.

Broccoli--Home grown broccoli is not to be believed! Try De Ciccio and Italian Calabrese. Romanesco, Piracicaba and Purple Peacock are beautiful and perfect for extending harvests into late winter. We have put together an All Season Assortment which will give you a bit of a few different types for extended harvests and a variety of flavors.

Kohlrabi--Try some of both White and Purple. Harvest when they are only about 2 or 3 inches across for best tenderness. Grate into salads, or slice and use like carrots. . . delicious!

Peas--Our favorite is Icebreaker for its short vines, early pods and remarkable sweet flavor. But you can’t beat Oregon Sugar Pods for stir fry and Super Sugar Snap rarely get into the house. . .we eat them in the garden!

Leeks & Onions--Leeks bring to mind Potato Leek soup! The onions are Walla Walla, Dulce, Crimson, Italian Red Torpedo and Candy. Plant 3 inches apart and thin as needed for ‘spring’ onions or wait until early summer for the real thing.

Master Nursery Tomato & Vegetable Food
Master Nursery Tomato & Vegetable Food is an organic base plant food for tomatoes, leafy vegetables or root crops. Use as a pre-plant or side dressing. Contains calcium, sulfur, iron, manganese and zinc.

Dr. Earth Tomato, Vegetable and Herb Fertilizer
A superior blend of fish bone meal, feather meal, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, soft rock phosphate, fish meal, mined potassium sulfate, humic acid, seaweed extract, PRO-BIOTIC™ seven champion strains of beneficial soil microbes plus Ecto-and Endo-Mycorrhizae.

We want to thank all of our customers that attended our sale and took the time to fill out a short survey card on how you heard about our sale. The winners of the $100 Gift Cards are Elaine Lim and Kathy Amerson. Thanks for helping us and enjoying our sale, too!