So get the shovel, decide what you want to plant, prepare your flower beds and let's get started.
STEMMING OUT CHOICES
Familiar pansies, violas, snapdragons, primrose and poppies are fine choices, but let's try something different this year.
Cyclamen advanced their popularity the most in recent years and for good reason. Growing in nearly full sun or moderate shade, cyclamen will probably outbloom any other flower over the next six months. Deep red cyclamen, contrasted with pure, glistening white will make quite a show, and in the coming months you'll see many front walkways adorned with this seasonal combination.
Nemesia has become a workhorse flower of local gardens, being planted every month of the year and flowering just about nonstop. But in their heart of hearts, nemesia are cool-season flowers, at their happiest from now through spring. The pastel blues, pinks, lavenders and white are perfectly colored for the cooler, grayer months ahead. The soothing lavender-blue flowers of the variety Blue Lagoon are my favorite.
Ornamental cabbages and kales, once a curiosity, are now among the most popular winter flowers in Orange County. With almost no effort and no deadheading needed, these architectural plants will fill a bed quickly with a sea of white, pink, or purplish-red foliage. The white in particular seems especially well-suited to short winter days.
Throughout fall, winter and spring I love small daisy-flowering plants. African Daisy (arctotis) are almost custom made for Orange County gardens. Their small clumping habit, warm colors and gray-green leaves seem to work perfectly with so much of our architecture.
