Traditionally, I've learned, fall is the best time in Texas to plant all spring-blooming annual flowers and almost anything perennial, whether herbs or flowers, or shrubs like roses. This is so plants get a good time to root themselves in over the winter in order to have stronger growth in spring before the heat sets in. It's when I sow all my wildflowers as well. I've learned the hard way that I don't live in a climate where I can sow many seeds outdoors after frost, as most seed packets inform you to do. Spring here is just too short, and by the time a plant starts germinating it won't have a change to bloom. My first year of gardening I tried this with several poppies, and they grew all right and started shooting out leaves but at the first hot day most of them began to choke.

If I could offer one piece of advice to a new Texas gardener, it would be to sow most of your seeds in fall, so that plants have a change to grow or settle in by November. October has been the best month for me to do this. This of course doesn't include all seeds, such as summer-blooming annuals which are not winter-hardy: zinnias, cosmos, and some others.

The most difficult job, however, of this past fall, has not been all the planting and the new landscaping--it was the total lack of rain. We had about 2 good days of rain between September and November. And since Thanksgiving it's probably rained once. I picked one of the hottest and drought-iest falls to start a foundational garden.

In spite of all this work, I've tried my best to keep up with my own projects, and even on this website am starting to list all the flowers, vegetables and shrubs I've planted in the "plantopia" section. Here is a small album of some of my recent blooms and projects: