This fall I?m at a new garden in Ben Lomond. I?ve brought down every potted plant from my property in Bonny Doon that was showing signs of regrowth after the fire. I figured if they were trying to survive after 6 weeks with no water, some in melted plastic pots and tops burned off who was I to deny them a chance to live? I had 250 potted plants. Yes, I know, what was I thinking? Anyway, with lots of empty glazed empty pots here I?m looking forward to planting bulbs this fall.

There are a lot of squirrels here in this garden. I?ll have to outsmart them. Squirrels, mice and moles are observant and crafty. Once they discover newly planted bulbs, they’ll assume it’s food. Just disturbing the earth is a tip off for them. Daffodils and narcissus bulbs are toxic but if they dig them up then leave them exposed with just a nibble taken, so much for any spring flower display. Protect your bulbs with wire baskets or spray them with foul tasting repellent, letting the spray dry before planting. You can also bury the bulbs with ground up egg shells. Another way to foil squirrels is to plant the bulbs deeply, This only works if you have good drainage, however. Next year, if the squirrels start nibbling the foliage as it emerges try spraying it with hot pepper spray.

One of the more unusual bulbs I grow in pots is Forest Lily (valthemia bracteata). I got several bulbs over 25 years ago and fortunately divided them last year to give as gifts. If the burned ones I now have don?t come back I can ask one of my friends to divide theirs and give me a few. The bulbs are enormous and bloom for months. The handsome foliage lis thick and wavy, looking somewhat like a succulent but it?s the huge, showy dark pink flower spikes that bloom from February to May that I love. Grow them light shade and allow them to go summer dormant. Valthemia are native to the northern Cape area in South Africa where it grows on rocky slopes along the famous Namaqualand Flower Route.

I love those huge, showy tulips as well as the new colors of daffodil and narcissus coming out each year. I?ve wanted to plant Spring Starflower or Ipheion for a long time. Their starry white flowers bloom over a long period in spring and they naturalize easily. Spring Snowflake ( leucojum vernum ) will also naturalize in the garden. The flowers are small and bell shaped, white with a green or yellow spot and have a slight fragrance. And I want to include some species tulips. They will re-bloom year after year just like they do in the wild in Europe, North Africa and Asia.

Another bulb I’ve wanted to grow for a long time is Ixia viridiflora. They need to be completely dry in summer so planting in pots will be perfect for this most striking and unusual bulb. Few plants can beat it for sheer brilliance of flower. Each flower is a brilliant turquoise green with a purple-black eye in the middle. The dark eye is caused by the deep blue sap of the cells of the upper epidermis. The green color is due to the effects of light being refracted from the cell wall and granules embedded in the pale blue cell sap. Amazing flower.

What about bulbs in the shade? Bulbs that will bloom in light shade are crocus, scilla, tulips, grape hyacinth, leucojum, snowdrops, chionodoxa and lily of the valley. Many from the daffodil clan, including jonquils and narcissus will grow, bloom and naturalize year after year under tree canopies or other lightly shaded areas.

Whatever you bulbs you choose to try this fall, you will be happy you planted some bulbs come spring. And to help them bloom again the following year fertilize them at the time of planting with bulb food or bone meal worked into the soil a couple inches at the bottom of the hole. Mature bulbs respond to an early spring feeding with the same fertilizer.

There is so much clean up to do around the garden in the fall but I think we should all do something fun. A couple years ago I got an email about when to plant sweet peas. This reader had collected seeds from the wild pea, lathyrus latifolia, and wanted to know when to plant them. Although the flowers of this perennial sweet pea are not fragrant, the culture is the same as all sweet peas. Now?s the time to plant.

The perennial or everlasting sweet pea we see growing wild is not native to our area. It has naturalized throughout the United States and Canada after having been introduced from the Mediterranean area in the 1700?s. It can be invasive but if it?s growing in an out of-the-way spot where you can enjoy the bright pink blossoms they require little care.

Who doesn’t love old-fashioned sweet peas? A small bouquet will perfume an entire room with a delicious scent. They remind me of my Aunt Ruth who grew them every year and let me pick a bunch each spring whenever I went to visit. There are many new varieties and colors these days but back then her sweet pea vines were covered with the classic mixed colors of violet, blue, pink, peach and white.

Sweet peas have been around for a long time and many different countries claim that they originated there. One story is that a monk, Father Cupani, first harvested them in the wild on an island off Sicily in 1695 and sent the seeds to the Netherlands. In the 1800’s, a Scottish nurseryman named Harry Eckford began hybridizing and introducing larger varieties in a wider range of colors and they became quite a sensation. The most famous and perhaps the most important use of this flower was the extensive genetics studies performed by Gregor Mendel. Since peas self-pollinate, their characteristics such as height, color and petal form could easily be tracked. But whether they came from Ceylon, the modern day Sri Lanka, China or Sicily, heirloom sweet peas are as exquisite in the garden as they are in the vase.

Pant early blooming types of sweet peas in October or November. These varieties flower in the shorter days of late winter. Winter Elegance and Early Multiflora are common early flowering types. Also plant some of the fragrant spring flowering heirlooms and Spencer’s at the same time to extend your harvest time.

My very favorite sweet pea with long stems for cutting and an intense fragrance of orange blossoms and honey is called April in Paris. Large ruffled blossoms are a soft primrose cream, tinted at the edges in dark lilac that deepens and increases with age. But maybe it?s Black Knight that?s my favorite sweet pea with those dark maroon strongly scented blossoms. You can’t go wrong no matter what color or style sweet pea you choose. They attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Deer generally ignore sweet peas. Sweet peas are not edible and may cause stomach upset.

Dogs are amazing. They can do incredible things. Well maybe not my dog, Sherman, who is more likely to get into mischief than save mankind but we?ve all heard stories about detection dogs sniffing out drugs, explosives, cadavers and disaster survivors. In the mid 90?s, handlers started training them for conservation tasks such as sniffing out scat from endangered species and detecting trafficked ivory. Now their olfactory prowess is being used in the fight against invasive plants and insects. And this year dogs are being trained to sniff out Covid 19 odor with 82% accuracy. The list of how man?s best friend is helping us just keeps getting longer.

It was my friend Cindy who told me about this latest use of detection dogs while we were walking on the beach. Her rescue dog, Sienna is obsessed with retrieving a ball thrown into the surf so she?d be the perfect candidate for a detection dog, assisting conservationists in the fight against invasive species.

Although I come across more French broom than Scotch in our area detection dogs can be trained to sniff out all invasive broom. They?re doing this in New York where Scotch broom is just starting to invade and land managers hope to eradicate it before it becomes widespread like it is here and all along the Pacific Northwest. Broom displaces native plants with thickets impenetrable to wildlife and changes the chemistry of the soil around it so that native plants can?t grow there. Broom grows quickly as it is able to fix nitrogen from the air giving a competitive advantage to other non-native weeds. It poses a serious threat to birds, butterflies and biodiversity. Broom contains a high amount of oil, which is flammable and increases the fire hazard. It?s also toxic to livestock and dogs depending on the amount ingested. And those are just some of the reasons why New York wants to keep broom away.

?Our field in the last 15 years has just exploded.? said Pete Coppolillo, executive director of the nonprofit Working Dogs for Conservation in Bozeman, Montana. The organization partners with government agencies, researchers and nonprofits on five continents to provide trained dogs and handlers for conservation projects. Besides helping to detect New York broom they have provided trained dogs to find invasive knapweed in Montana, Chinese bush clover in Iowa, yellow thistle in Colorado as well as invasive zebra and quagga mussels on boats here in California.

Working Dogs for Conservation trains shelter dogs for detection work, screening 1000 dogs for every one they put to work. To make the cut, the dogs have to be not only good sniffers and high-energy, but also seriously obsessed with toys so they?ll stay motivated to work for a reward – the chance to play with a ball.

Because I eat a lot of oranges and lemons I looked up recent papers to see if dogs were still being used to detect citrus greening disease. Sure enough what started 5 years ago with just a few dogs has increased dramatically and many dogs are now being trained. Tim Gottwald, a U.S. Dept. of Agriculture plant pathologist, said during a recent presentation in Riverside that dogs in Florida have been 99% accurate and in tests just this last December and February in Southern California backyards, they were more than 92% accurate even when distracted by the homeowners. Because dogs can actually smell the bacteria that causes greening disease within a few weeks after infection well before lab tests can confirm, their work is vitally important.

So when you?re petting ?man?s best friend? tonight appreciate all the great things he does for you and for our planet.