November Gardening Tips for the Southwest

These November gardening tips are for the lower elevations of the Southwest.
November is the second to the last month of the year. It is STILL a good time to plant. You can still plant trees, shrubs, flowers and much more. For color you can't go wrong with pansies, if planted now you can have beautiful flowers and color until late April. You can plant directly into the ground or in just about any container as long as it has good drainage. Use a good quality potting soil with additional amounts of perlite to help loosen and add tiny air pockets and help roots to "breathe". Plant them in an area that receives plenty of sunlight. Feed with an "all purpose fertilizer such as Peters 20-20-20. Remove spent blossoms reguarly to encourage new blooms. You can also add stock, dianthus and snapdragons to this list as well.
This is also a great time to over-seed your bermuda grass lawn. You may use annual rye or perennial rye. Annual rye will stay green throught the the winter months and begin to die off in the summer heat. You will have to repeat this process again in the fall. Perennial rye in bermuda will co-exist throught the season. You may have patchy areas of green and dormant grass the flollowing fall season depending on the amount of water and shade your lawn receives.
Watering this time of the year will be needed much less than October. Bermuda lawns should be watered about every 10-15 days, depending on the actual temperature. You need to water at least twice per month after your lawn goes dormant. If you have cool season grass such as fescue, rye, or blue grass you need to water every 7 to 10 days, through the winter months. Remember to fertilize your cool season grass if you want it to stay green! You can apply 16-8-8 fertilizer during this time of the year, just be sure that it has been more than 6-8 weeks since you last fertilized.
Some pruning may be done at this time of the year depending on what type of tree or shrub you may have. A good rule of thumb is to have a "reason" for cutting. Is the plant overgrown, diseased, insect infested etc...
Do NOT prune heavily at this time of the year, in general the majority of pruning should be done in January before mid-February for most plants.