If you come into the nursery during the spring over the last few years you noticed the fabulous Foxglove and Canterbury Bells in bloom. If you want to grow your own now is still time to plant them. Like many perennials Foxglove and Canterbury Bells love Fall planting. Our climate allows them to grow over November, december and January to create a show this Spring.

In California when we think of Fall color we arte thinking of either Fall foliage like the North-east is famous for or the Fall flowers that we get here. There is another source of color for this time of year. Fall fruit and berries.

One we often don't think of for fall color are fruit trees. Pomogranates are famous for their wonderful fruits with deep cherry red seeds breaking out of the covering. Persimmons with their orange fruit hanging on after the foliage turns and falls is another. Citrus, especially Tangelos , are another source of attractive color. Tangelos look like nothing but rich orange Christmas ornaments all winter long.

Berry producers include Pyracantha, Californias answer to Holly berries for Christmas. Flowering Crabapples are another source of colorful fall and winter berries. Cotoneaser is a group of shrubs with varieties staying in the 2'3 ft range up to 8-10 ft tall and wide. If you have room I especially like cotoneaster lactea an evergreen shrub to 8' + with white flowers in the Spring and clusters of red berries all winter.

Other things to consider include Arbutus marina and Arbutus unedo compacta. the first grows to a medium sized tree and the second stays as a large 8-10' multitrunked shrub. Both have winter flowers and winter red berries.

With automatic timers so prevalent we are finding that many people are over watering, watering too often and compensating for sprinkler design mistakes with more water everywhere.

As we move into fall and winter the question comes up how should I change my irrigation.

Our answer is usually change the frequency of irrigation not the length of time.

If you are watering three times a week for 20 minutes we start with changing to twice a week and then once a week as the weather changes. as the weather changes even more we turn the automatic irrigation off and water only as we see the need.

If you reduce the amount of time the sprinklers are on we run into problems with not getting the entire root system moist.

another issue to remember is in rainy weather plants under overhangs or evergreen trees may not be getting enough water. These areas need to be checked individually.

Remember, as we move into weather with frosts, that frosts acutually pull water out of evergreen plants. You may need to water occasionally during this kind of weather to replace the water lost.

When we think of fall color we always think of trees. In Modesto Pistache, Liquidamber, Ginkgo and Modesto Ash come to mind first. Other trees with nice fall color include Red Maple, some of the Japanese Maples, and Scarlet Oak.

There are a number of shrubs that also are valuable for the Fall colored foliage. Most notable of there are the numerous kinds of Nandina or Heavenly Bamboo. Not a bamboo, most have bamboo like foliage and cane branching structure. The standard kinds grow from 6-8 ft tall with an upright structure.

Some of the newer selections, Gulfstream and Sienna Sunrise, are lower growing to about 4' tall and bushier. Both of these have dramatic fall color if they get enough sun. Even lower is Harbor Dwarf also with nice fall color.

They all like full to part sun. There is an other variety called "Nana Purpurea" or Fire Power which makes a clumping plant. This is often planted in the sun but prefers at least partial shade for good foliage color in the summer. It does need some sun for the best fall color.

Other good Fall color plants include Purple Hopseed. This is a large 8-10' shrub. Bay Breeze Indian Hawthorn which is a low growing form of Indian Hawthorn. both of these are evergreen.

Some deciduous fall color shrubs include some of the spireas especialy Shoe Button Spirea. Snow Ball bush is another large deciduous shrub that has attractive fall color.

Other sources of Fall color include berries and flowers that I will discuss in a later post.

we are coming up to the time that Fall color trees take pride of place in Modesto. probebly tghe most showy tree here is Chinese Pistache.

Unfortunatly Pistache comes as a male tree and female tree seperatly. The female tree sets numbeous berries that create a mess and the energy going into fruit production reduce the growth and size of the tree.

Most pistache in the market are3 seedling trtees which mean you don't know if you have a male or female until it is too late, 5- 10 years after being planted.

Recently I helped encourage three california nurseries to put a male strain with distinctly superior fall color into production by grafting. Keith Davies is a pistache with the attributes you need for a wonderful garden tree. It is moderate fast. Has a well behaved froot system under most conditions and seems disease and pest free. It does sometimes need application of additional iron

We have access to a limited number of Keith Davies trees in #15 and 24" box sizes. Although the price is higher because of the additional growing time required by grafting, it is well worth the difference.

If you want a truly superior tree with excellent fall color come in and look at Keith Davies Pistache

We just received our first shipoment of Plant material from Oregon. The order is from Iseli Nursery which is noted for lots of interesting and different c onifers and other plants.

Notable amoung these plants is Jean's Dilly Spruce.. Jean's Dilly is an Alberta Spruce relative except it is narrower in growth and at least 1/3 smaller. Note that the pictured tree has vitrually never been pruned. the description from the Iseli web site is:

Spring growth begins two to three weeks later than 'Conica' at a slower growth rate with smaller, thinner needles. Named by André Iseli in memory of his brother Jean. Dilly is defined as, "one that is outstanding or remarkable" - certainly a fitting description of the plant and it's namesake.

The natural Christmas tree shape makes a perfect accent or container plant. It looks great with miniature Christmas tree lights by the front door to greet people during the hollidays. As Alberta Spruce it prefers proterction from the hottest sun in our climate. Because it is so slow growing and the demand continues to grow it is only available in #1 and #3 sizes. Still the larger size does make a good container plant or accent.