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California Gardener’s December Checklist

Winter-blooming flowers to add to beds, cool-season veggies to plant and other ideas to take advantage of the season

Lauren Dunec HoangDecember 1, 2017

Houzz Editor; landscape designer and former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and in-house designer for Sunset's Editorial Test Garden. Her garden designs have been featured in the Sunset Western Garden Book of Landscaping, Sunset Western Garden Book of Easy-Care Plantings (cover), Inhabitat, and POPSUGAR.

Winter in California can feel almost like a lush rejuvenation: the hillsides turn green, trees drink deeply after a hot, dry summer and bright berries and winter flowers stand out in gardens. We might even be fooled into thinking it’s spring. Here’s what to do in your garden this month, including winter-blooming flowers to plant now, frost-protection tips and a creative idea for window boxes.

Not in California? Find your checklist here

Le jardinet

Assess garden structure. Once deciduous trees lose their leaves and perennials die back, it’s easier to spot sections of the landscape that could benefit from more evergreen structure. Look for areas that could use screening plants, either for privacy from neighboring buildings or for separation between garden rooms. Pathways and gates that are usually flanked by warm-season plants can be other areas that may benefit from more structure. Try adding a few potted evergreens to mark the entrance to a walkway. Come spring, you can keep the potted evergreen plants as a backdrop and supplement with pots of colorful bulbs.

Hedgers and Edgers: The 10 Best Shrubs for Structure

Terra Nova® Nurseries, Inc

Try Lenten roses. Stars of mild-climate winter gardens, hellebores bloom from December to April, depending on the variety, and make beautiful additions to woodland-style beds. ‘Onyx Odyssey’ hellebore (H. x hybridus Winter Jewels ‘Onyx Odyssey’), shown here, has 3-inch-wide double-petaled blooms that range in color from slate to deep purple.

Skagit Gardens

‘Monte Cristo’ hellebore (H. x ericsmithii Gold Collection ‘Monte Cristo’), shown here, has 3-inch-wide pale green flowers with blush reverse sides and dark purple foliage.

All hellebores make long-lasting cut flowers, and the blossoms can also be pinched and floated in water for an arrangement with floating candles.

Hellebores grow best in partial sun to full shade, with moderate water (don’t let beds entirely dry out) and in rich, well-drained soil.

Learn more about growing hellebores

Niki Jabbour

Protect plants from frost. Help prevent damage to vegetable starts and other tender plants, like bougainvillea, citrus and salvia, by covering plants with a frost blanket when temperatures drop below freezing. Frost blankets, available from nurseries and home improvement stores, act like a cozy duvet for tender plants — trapping warmth and moisture and keeping frost off foliage. Set stakes around a plant that will need protection and drape the frost blanket over it so that the blanket does not touch the foliage. (Bedsheets or lightweight blankets can be used in a pinch.) Remove the cover in the morning.

How to Save Your Plants From Frost

Amy Renea

Keep planting cool-season veggies. You can still plant leafy greens, like kale, chard (pictured), collards and mustard greens, and head-forming cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage. Plant from starts from the nursery rather than from seed, since the soil may be too cold for seed germination.

Choose an area of your garden that receives full sun, or grow in containers that can be moved to a spot with sun. Keep the soil moist after planting, and combat snails and slugs with pet-safe Sluggo.

James Gaither

Plant bird-friendly berries. It’s said that it’s holly look-alike native toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) that gives the Hollywood Hills their name. From late October through the new year, toyon stands out on native chaparral hillsides and in gardens with its jewel-like clusters of red berries. Birds love them. Plant a toyon in your garden in an area with full sun and dry, well-draining soil, and you’ll soon see robins, cedar waxwings and other fruit eaters coming in to eat the berries.

Paul Furman

Toyon berries can be just as decorative as English holly in wreaths and arrangements. This all-California-native wreath includes sprigs of redwood, toyon and coyote bush.

Grenville K. Godfrey

‘Elizabeth’ Bush Anemone (Carpenteria californica ‘Elizabeth’)

Bookmark plant catalogs. Eager for spring planting? Mark your favorites now or go ahead and place your order. Reputable mail-order nurseries won’t ship plants until it’s planting time — which generally means after the last frost date for warm-season annuals and perennials. In all mild parts of California, excluding snowy inland and mountain areas, you can order and plant bare-root roses and fruit trees now through spring.

Haute Botanics

Do something festive with greenery. If you’re cutting back evergreens — or have extra trimmings from your Christmas tree — put the greenery to work as winter decorations. The designer of this creative window box display used mixed conifer and magnolia trimmings to set the stage for trios of white birch “candles” to form a pretty wintry vignette.

Lori McCabe

Keep the mud down. Winter rains mean muddy gardens. To keep people from tracking mud into the house, spread mulch, straw or pine needles along garden pathways. Go a step further and plunk down steppingstones along frequently traveled areas where you don’t need a flat surface on which to roll a green-waste bin.

Louise de Miranda

Try a living Christmas tree. Instead of heading to the cut-tree lot this month, consider picking up a potted Christmas tree you can use year after year. Nurseries are stocked with plenty of potted conifers this month, from classic dwarf white spruce (Picea glauca ‘Conica’, USDA zones 2 to 8; find your zone) to indoor-friendly Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla, zones 10 to 11). Most conifers can tolerate only about 10 days indoors, so either wait to bring your tree inside until midmonth, or plan to break up a longer time indoors by bringing the tree outside for a few days of sunlight. Norfolk Island pine is an exception and can be grown as a houseplant as long as it receives enough sunlight.

If you live in an apartment or don’t have the space for a potted conifer in your yard post-Christmas, try the Adopt a Christmas Tree program: A nursery will deliver a potted tree to your home in December and pick it up postholidays and bring it back to the farm.

More
Why You Should Consider a Living Christmas Tree
Not in California? Find your checklist here