By Harold Voorheis
Idyllwild Garden Club

Thanksgiving week or a bit afterward is usually the last of the weather that allows for being able to comfortably garden here in Idyllwild or Pine Cove. We have already gone through a good early winter snowstorm, and a wake-up call of frost.

A little gardening work here still remains to be done. Not really work as such, but setting the stage for next year. A lot of transplanting remains to be done. This is the best time to transplant, as the weather is cool and crisp in the mornings, warming in the afternoon.

Bulbs, tubers and rhizomes of all descriptions do best when transplanted while the soil can be worked. Don’t mulch the bulbs until after the soil has turned cold because mulch creates easy runs for voles and mice.Trees and shrubs do best when transplanted now. The soil will not get below 40 degrees for some time yet, so their roots will continue to grow as their tops are dormant.

Perennials are mostly dormant in their containers now, so the roots can be transplanted, watered once, mulched and ignored until they return next spring.

Please look for continued “Plants of the Week” from our mountains this coming winter to fill in other “dream” plans to for the spring.