November 2025 Newsletter: November Rains

Greetings, friends –

The rainy season has begun. We all wait to see if it will be a “normal” year, if there will be atmospheric rivers and floods, and if our gardens will be getting a deep drink in our winter-wet climate. If the rains have not returned after the nice, wet October weather many of us received, it is time to think about irrigating the garden. We write our newsletter several weeks before it is released, so if it is pouring down rain today, and you think we are loony for writing about watering, hold this thought for a dry winter.

Plants adapted to summer-dry climates expect their water to come in the winter, and when it does, they can quite naturally adapt to dry summers. We like to say dry summers are not drought—they are normal. Dry winters are drought, and that’s the time to water if nature does not. We also advocate certain supplemental irrigation schedules in the summer to keep plants healthy and hydrated, but watering is not critical then for their survival, so long as they get a good drink throughout the winter.

Winter does not officially start until next month, but now is the time to be sure gardens are getting water; the roots are thirsty and are looking to store nutrients for next year. (Read about root osmosis in the Links We Like below). If the rains are sporadic throughout the season, we recommend watering deeply every two or three weeks to keep their systems thriving. The roots are growing, plant tissues are regenerating, and if you go out into the garden to observe, you can find buds swelling along branch nodes and may even see winter flowers starting to form.

~ Saxon Holt and Nora Harlow

November Blog Post: Aloe Striata

It can be difficult to stand out among the hundreds of aloe species and their many hybrids of known, unknown, or uncertain parentage. Virtually all aloes are at least interesting, and many are supremely beautiful, especially in bloom. Aloe striata stands out simply as a choice landscape plant . . .

Read On

Instagram Memories

Nov. 22, 2021

It is sometimes too easy to forget that here I am in California where it’s autumn, but in other summer-dry climates around the world it’s spring. And two years ago exactly, I was in Chilé, and was privileged to be in the garden of Ximena Nazal @ximenanazal

Follow Us on Instagram

Raindrops

Does anyone not thrill over the first rains of the season? The clean, fresh air energizes our bodies. Petrichor in the air is a rush to the soul. With a good rain, the damp ground turns to an earthy sponge gently yielding under our feet. We can feel the garden sigh with relief, open up, and come to life. It is the beginning of spring for a summer-dry climate.

Immediately after a rain, when the air is still, we will find raindrops cleaving to branches, liquid crystals swelling up, getting ready to drop. Look closely, and you can see reflections in each shimmering jewel.

These drops hovering in a carefully balanced row on a stem of the grapevine Vitis ‘Rogers Red’, reflect the leaf behind them.

Here, the distant gold of a ginkgo tree in its rich, yellow, autumn cloak serves as a background to these raindrops shimmering off the tips of the evergreen needles of a dwarf conifer, Cryptomeria japonica ‘Globosa Nana’. A wondrous delicate moment that will shatter with the first breath of wind.

These delicate sparkles have gathered on the berries of a crabapple, Malus ‘Molten Lava’ and shimmer, having been spritzed with rain.

We hope the rain is enlivening your garden, and that you too can go out and be enthralled in the magic of a garden in the winter-wet season.

Get More Ideas in our Book

Links We Like

From the Royal Horticultural Society on osmosis—How plants absorb water.

We would love to hear about any resources you would like to pass along. We all get these snippets from our news feeds and inboxes. Let’s share the best, and we will keep the running list so you can find them later on the Links We Like page.