Other than the smell of a turkey roasting in the oven or the sight of a quarterback tossing a football to a receiver in the flat, nothing makes me feel better about November than a persimmon tree fully loaded with gleaming orange fruit among foliage turning a matching color.

This is a plant that says a lot about gardening in California, and maybe about California in general. Native to Asia, it has made itself home in the state. It's easy to grow. It's quirky — the fruit of the most common species is so astringent that you can't eat it until frost or time softens it.

Of course, the persimmon is also a reminder of how distinctive California's plants and gardening climate are — and how many neat things we can do in the garden this month when much of the country is moving indoors for an annual hibernation.
If you don't have space for a persimmon tree, just buy a few of the fruits and keep them on the counter for a week or two. Or at least read this homage to the persimmon by Gary Snyder, California's most stirring contemporary nature poet. Glenna Partridge Garden Design Grow bulbs in pots. Like almost everything else that has to do with growing bulbs in California, planting them in containers calls for a few twists. You have to compensate for the lack of winter chill needed by most bulbs and for the shallower planting depth in a pot. Here are a few tips for planting the most popular bulbs — tulips and daffodils — in containers.

• Choose terra-cotta or plastic pots that are at least 8 inches in diameter — as large as 14 inches for larger daffodils.
• For an 8-inch pot, use five or six bulbs. For a 14-inch pot, use as many as 15 to 20.
• Add 3 inches of good soil mix, commercial or your own, preferably including fertilizer, to the bottom of the pot. Place bulbs on top; the flat sides of tulip bulbs should all point in the same direction. For the biggest splash, pack bulbs tightly together.
• Cover bulbs with enough soil to reach to 2 inches below the pot's rim. Water thoroughly, then place the pots in a cool, frost-free spot outdoors.
• Pile at least 2 inches of mulch on top for protection. Keep the soil moist through winter.
• When foliage begins to poke through the soil in late winter or spring (gently scrape back the mulch occasionally to check), remove the mulch carefully and the move pots to a sunny spot.
• Water often enough to keep the soil moist until blooming finishes. Fireside drama. As bold as a piece of sculpture, this steel backdrop adds a sense of theater — and a measure of safety for nearby plants — to the fire pit. Designed by Koning Eizenberg Architecture of Santa Monica, California, the piece is an 8-by-8 steel sheet bolted to a steel frame behind the rectangular concrete fire pit. The steel is oiled to arrest rust. Cor-Ten steel, available in sheets like plywood, 3/16 or 1/4 inch thick, is typically used for heavy-duty landscape situations such as this.
Monrovia Previewing the new and hot (and blue). At a recent conference of the American Society of Landscape Architects, I had a chance to see what Monrovia nursery considers its hottest new plants. Standouts included 'Winter Bee' lavender, 'Limelight' hardy hydrangea and 'Angel Red' pomegranate.

Most impressive to me was ‘Bountiful Blue’ blueberry. The "blue” in the name doesn’t come from the berries but from the strong blue cast of the foliage. The flowers are pretty too: small and white, with a pink blush.

The handsome, compact shrub grows 3 to 4 feet tall. Plant a number of them in rows for an agrarian feel or in masses. Or just plant one or two in a shrub border or container.

This blueberry's main claim to fame is its ability to thrive and bear a tasty crop beyond the usual blueberry range (it requires much less winter chill than traditional blueberries). A landscape architect told me how well ‘Bountiful Blue' performs in her Santa Barbara garden. That’s a long way, geographically and climatically, from traditional blueberry country — which you know is Maine if you've ever read Blueberries for Sal to your kids.
Missouri Botanical Garden Sowing wildflowers and busting myths. Sorry if I'm disillusioning anyone, but growing wildflowers at home is not just a matter of scattering seeds, waiting for winter rains, then in spring romping through a meadow of golden poppies, tidy tips and shooting stars. (Don't you love those names? Were our great-grandparents or whoever did the naming natural-born poets?)

The reality of California annual wildflowers is that they evolved to thrive under very specific conditions of moisture, sunlight and temperature, and growing most types requires some care. But the wildflower that's easiest to grow is also the best known and the most in-your-face gorgeous: the California poppy, either its natural form (shown) or "improved" varieties such as 'Chiffon'. Other relatively easy wildflowers include globe gilia (Gilia capitata), goldfields (Lastenia glabrata) and ruby chalice clarkia (Clarkia rubicunda).

Mid to late fall, preferably after the first rains, is the best time to sow California poppy and other wildflowers. (You can also start with plants in small pots available in early spring.) Choose a spot in full sun. You don't have to cultivate the soil, but remove weeds and rake it roughly so seeds have a place to lodge. Cover the soil with a thin layer of mulch and sprinkle it throughly, and keep moist until winter rains do the job for you. Alder Group, Pool and Landscape Co. Instead of striving for a meadow effect (which can look kind of shabby-dead after bloom), scatter wildflowers as highlights in a natural-looking landscape, as shown here. Combine wildflowers with native shrubs such as ceanothus or with sun-loving perennials such as lavender and salvia. An excellent source of wildflower information as well as seeds is Larner Seeds of Bolinas, California. A lesson in minimalism, Arizona style. With just three kinds of plants and stones as a ground cover, this is a striking example of what could be called Arizona minimalism (as opposed to Arizona maximum, a less sustainable arid-climate approach that utilizes lawns, palm trees and lots of water). Even if you can't grow the totem cactus shown here, you can emulate the keep-it-simple approach. Fava beans: their humble roots. Half a century before the French Laundry's menu offered fava beans, the ranchers of the Santa Clara Valley, where I was growing up, were counting on the same plant. They called it horse bean, and each fall they planted it in their orchards as a cover crop ("green manure"), which would be plowed back into the ground in spring to add nitrogen to the soil.

Growing fava beans still makes sense. You don't need an orchard. In a 4- by 10-foot plot, one of my neighbors plants favas each fall after she pulls out her tomatoes, has enough beans for a few spring meals, then turns over the plants into the ground to enrich the soil for summer crops to come. How to grow fava beans. Choose a sunny spot, cultivate the soil and bury seeds 1 inch deep, 4 or 5 inches apart; after seedlings are several inches tall, thin them to 8 to 10 inches apart. Keep the soil moist all winter. Plants grow quickly and, as you see here, can become pretty rangy at 3 to 4 feet tall; stake them if you want a neater look. The New York Botanical Garden What else can you do in November in the California garden? Along with the traditional fall chores, such as leaf raking, general cleaning up and composting, it's a good time to put in shrubs, trees and all sorts of natives. You can plant a new lawn — it's usually better to go with sod now than seeds. And take advantage of the special planting opportunities that California offers:

Plant cool-season annuals. Continue to set out seedlings of annual flowers such as calendulas, Iceland poppies, pansies and violas (shown), and snapdragons. For earlier blooms, start with plants in 2- or 4-inch pots. Make sure to choose a spot that gets as much winter sun as possible.

Plant cool-season vegetables. These crops are easy to start from seeds: beets, carrots, peas, radishes, spinach and Swiss chard. These are usually best set out as seedlings: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower. Watch for snails or their slimy telltale trails; set out bait.

Plant spring-blooming bulbs. In November there's still time to plant all bulbs: crocuses, daffodils, freesias, hyacinths, tulips and ranunculus. Make sure to chill tulips and hyacinths for four to six weeks in the refrigerator before planting them.

Plant perennials. Fall planting gives perennials a chance to build up strong root systems before blooming next spring and summer. Perennials include lavender, coreopsis, salvia and many others.