Native Gardener’s Corner-Member’s Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

November/December 2025

Guest author Dan Songster, compiles this feature article offering OCCNPS chapter members and local experts a chance to briefly share information on the many things related to gardening with natives. Dan’s question for November/December:

Winter is here and the time for the chores that will prompt our native gardens to be healthy and lovely in the coming spring months. What is your favorite chore to accomplish? A job that when finished, makes you stand back and say, ‘Yeah!!’

Orchid Black-“My favorite chore to accomplish is pruning sages. The fragrance can knock me over. I save the branches to dry and tie onto Christmas packages. I used to dry them in a paper bag behind the couch, too, using that fragrance twice. Remember, ‘Black Friday’ is really last-day-to-prune-your-sages day!” 

Ed Kimball-“Anne and I do extensive weeding, seeding of wildflowers, and last minute planting of our latest purchased plants from the nursery.”

Greg Rubin-“Although you are definitely not limited to this timeframe, many people like to plant this time of year, when it is cooler and soil humidity is usually higher. Mainly, it’s easier on us! This is also a very good time to prune fall/winter dormant deciduous plants; you need to be careful to prune prior to bud swell, however, as you may lose your flowers and new growth. Other general garden chores are just easier this time of year, in general. 

And, if you don’t wait too long, late fall is the best time to put down your wildflower seed – I generally rake back the mulch where I want to sow, cover the seed with a thin layer of DG or even clean top soil (1/2″ or less), lightly tamp it down, and keep the soil moist until they germinate and are showing the first set of true leaves. I prefer to use this method as opposed to raking them in, as that process often stirs up exotic weeds, which are completely suppressive of the wildflowers and make oodles more work! Also don’t make the areas so wide that you can’t reach over the seedlings to weed (you can leave little 18-24″ paths in-between groups). Don’t cover with leaf litter or mulch, unless they are known understory companion flowers, like Chinese houses, Fiesta flower, or Baby blue eyes.”

Bart O’Brien-“Great time to be cutting back our native Salvia species and hybrids – especially younger vigorously growing specimens!”

Ron Vanderhoff-“I would have to say pruning, deadheading, and doing careful cut-backs. For me, this comes before planting, which would be my number two, because these activities are about rejuvination. Removing the old and expired, makes room for the new fresh growth which is soon to come. Of course, this pruning, trimming, and clean-up needs to be done very intelligently and specific to each species. Balls, buzz-cuts, coppicing, heading-back, hedging and so on are seldom the proper approach with a native plant – or any plant. Learn the plants and their habits, talk to fellow CNPS gardeners, and follow the advice of the native plant experts in the chapter before heading out with the tools.

While in the garden, don’t be afraid to bring a shovel along. Just as plant succession happens in natural areas, native plants will need to be replaced periodically as well. Saying goodbye to a few and hello to a few others is a part of sustaining a thriving, healthy native garden.”

Dan Songster-“I agree with Tom Fischer who remarked, ‘The way I figure it, watering, feeding, planting, digging, dividing, deadheading, and so on account for only about 10 percent of what we loosely term gardening — the remaining 90 percent is weeding.’ So, getting a big head start on that almost yearlong chore is my favorite winter garden job to finish. If done well, before the seeds fall and if I get all the roots-I know I am saving myself soooo much work later on! During this weeding I also take out excess California poppies or other overly aggressive annuals, that when larger will crowd out my smaller less aggressive perennials (such as Monardellas, smaller buckwheats, columbine, blue flax, and even monkey flowers!) 

I also enjoy winter pruning, when my native plants may be resting easy during the cooler temperatures. I am happy to be deadheading, tipping back or doing general shaping – but really it is structural and aesthetic pruning I love. Revealing the beauty of a woody shrub like summer holly, a scrub oak, sugar bush, one of the larger Ceanothus (like ‘Ray Hartman’ or ‘Snow Flurry’), or one of our beautiful shrub Manzanitas is not even work to me, just a lovely puzzle. Looking at these plants from different angles, and carefully considering what to branches to leave and which to remove. When I am done with a satisfying and long-lasting job like that, I do step back and enjoy the results and happily imagine that plant’s future growth. Yeah!”  

Question for our Jan/Feb 2026 newsletter is: “A New Year with its own particular challenges awaits. What challenges do you see arising in your native garden’s near future?”