Shorter days and cooler temperatures make November one of the best months for gardening, make good use of them. Nurseries will still have bulbs, cool season flowers, vegetables, shrubs and trees to plant now. Think Thanksgiving and Christmas in your purchases and buy for crafts if you are crafty
For your own enjoyment, and for lovely gifts, force bulbs of crocus, daffodils, Dutch iris, hyacinths and tulips. These need a chilling period between 30 and 50 degrees; for tulips, 12 to 14 weeks, for daffodils and iris, 10 to 12 weeks and hyacinths 6 to 10 weeks. The best place to put bulbs for cooling is in the refrigerator - here is where an extra one comes in handy. Plant them in pots with a drainage holes in moist (not wet) fast draining potting soil or a bulb mix. Barely cover the tips with mix or leave them just exposed - enclose pots in plastic bags punched with a few holes and place in refrigerator. For successive plantings, store other bulbs in refrigerator drawers.
Overseed Bermuda lawns with annual or perennial rye grass if you like a nice green lawn all winter. Annual rye grass is cheaper but needs more frequent mowing, stains clothes and is coarse-textured. Sow 10 to 20 pounds over 1,000 feet of very low mowed Bermuda. Keep moist until seedlings are ½ inch high and feed with a fertilizer containing nitrate such as ammonium nitrate a month later. Mow rye grass to 1 ½ to 2 inches and water regularly when it doesn't rain.
As temperatures drop, citrus need less water. See November 1997 article for information on caring for your citrus and deciduous fruit trees this month. Roses need some attention after the long, hot summer.Lightly prune roses to remove dead or crossed canes and weak stems or twigs and feed with about 4 oz. of a good 10-10-10 rose fertilizer. Water deeply and regularly and remove spent blooms for best bloom. Pull all dead plants and put in your compost pile unless they are diseased. Remember to add your kitchen vegetable waste, some shredded newspapers, a little manure, grass, anything organic.
A note about desert soils - most are very alkaline and lacking in organic matter, which makes having a compost pile very practical.
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