By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

Sometimes I feel that my blog entries are one failed garden experience after another. Here we go again…

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that I haven’t always kept the best care of my tools. The other day Julie Chai, Associate Garden Editor (and, ahem, my boss), went to cut a bouquet of fall flowers and couldn't believe the sorry state of my bypass pruners.

“You’ve never learned how to sharpen your tools?” she asked in disbelief, knowing I'd worked for a variety of farms and gardens.

So, it’s time for Tool Care 101: Proper care for bypass pruners.

1. Disassemble - All I needed was a crescent wrench.

2. Clean - Julie likes using a bubbling bathroom/kitchen cleanser.

3. Sharpen - Bypass pruners have only one beveled edge and thus only one edge that needs sharpening. Run a file all along the sharpened edge at an angle of about 25 degrees. Use long, one-way strokes, much like you would sharpen your kitchen knives.

4. Reassemble and align - Again, all I needed was the monkey wrench to get everything back in it's place. I don't have a picture of this one, but I promise it was easy (that is, once I had facilities supervisor, Tony Soria, help me realign the toothed center nut).

5. Use 3-in-1 oil - Make sure to oil the spring between the two handles, as well as the space where the two blades overlap.

6. PRUNE AWAY! Let me just tell you -- it's like having a brand new pair tool. They're so sharp and smooth that the dead rose just fell off when I held the pruners near the stem.

Julie likes to clean and oil her pair after each use. The big disassembly and sharpening are recommended for once several times a year. Over-sharpening can weaken your blade, so be cautious.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Having been to Las Vegas to scout during the tail end of summer and having just returned from Phoenix, I've shifted my position on lawns.  Slightly.  When you're drinking what feels like several gallons of water a day and you're still always thirsty, that turf starts looking pretty seductive.  Very cool, very wet, very tempting.  I wanted to go roll in it. 

So I can understand why homeowners in the driest parts of the country are the most reluctant to get rid of their lawns.  Those patches of concentrated green are a psychological comfort.  But, please, let's restrict these symbolic oases to the backyard where we get the most benefit from them.  And let's keep eliminating those wasteful, boring front lawns.

What do you put in their place?  See this story for one idea.  And this one for more.

Los Angeles garden designer and tv host Shirley Bovshow also has three examples on the Sustainable Gardening blog.  This one is my favorite.

Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano, California is offering a three-part class on replacing your lawn.  The next class, Step I -- Kill Your Grass -- is offered on November 8.  Go here to see the full schedule.  Many water district are now offering classes like this, too.  Check with yours to see if there's one coming up.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Muhlenbergia capillaris 'Regal Mist' seemed to be in bloom everywhere I looked in Arizona last week -- every situation seemingly prettier than the next.  This particular example is from a Tucson, Arizona garden designed by Jason Isenberg of Urban Organics Landscaping. The rosy plumes of the Muhlenbergia are complimented perfectly by the soft gray-green of Euphorbia rigida and Artemisia 'Powis Castle.'

photograph by Jason Isenberg

Cindy McNatt has another beautiful image on her Orange County Register blog.  A surprising but beautiful combination of 'Regal Mist' with pink shrub roses.  She calls the duo "cotton candy and roses."

Yesterday Sharon wrote about how native gardens make great habitats for local wildlife. Today we have news of this winged visitor to a garden in Temecula, Calif.

Gene Burch snapped these photos after he rescued the little cutie from his backyard pool. Once the bat dried off in the sun, he flew away unharmed, sure to fly again on Halloween night.

We love the look of the sun warming his fuzzy head. Anyone know what kind of bat he is?

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Quick, buy a blonde pumpkin like this one before they disappear from nurseries, grocery stores, and pumpkin patches.  Use it as a centerpiece for a container as Lisa Bauchiero did in one of her container displays at Roger's Gardens in Newport Beach, California.

You could use any pumpkin, of course, but the blonde color of this pumpkin makes makes the container seem appropriate for a longer season.  This combination of pumpkin, ornamental kale, dusty miller, the fishhook plant, and Deschampsia caespitosa 'Northern Lights' (or at least that's what I think that small, tawny grass is) has a 'wintery' look that will carry you through November, December, and into January.

Photographs by Jennifer Cheung

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Sharon Lowe writes a monthly column for the Horticultural Society of Orange County's newsletter, and normally it's my favorite section. I nearly always pick up some new tip from her.  In fact I wrote a blog post about one of them -- her fool-proof technique for designing with color -- on May 16th.  But this month Ms. Lowe made me very cranky.

Garden writers, she complains, pitch native plants every fall because we're desperate to find drought-tolerant plants to promote.  I plead guilty to making those annual pitches.  I'm sure planting native plants has been in my checklist every fall since I've worked for Sunset magazine.  But I don't promote them for the reason Lowe suggests.

There is no shortage of drought-tolerant plants.  In fact I'm often astounded by just how many plants have adapted superbly to arid climates.  We have a plethora of amazing plants to choose from.  So I don't write about natives every fall because I can't think of anything else.  I push them then because that's when they're easiest to find.  Besides being available in nurseries, many native plant societies have sales in the fall and so do botanical gardens that specialize in natives such as Santa Barbara Botanical Garden and Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden. Natives are also easiest to get established when planted in fall.

Garden writers might also push native plants because we actually love them -- despite or maybe even because of all the so-called drawbacks Lowe goes on to list, and we'll get to next. 

Okay, natives may not be as showy.  They are defintely not as bulletproof as staples like flax.  Natives do have their down periods.  But they smell like heaven.  They're superb habitat plants--my garden is more alive than it's ever been.  And the more you work with natives, the more they change your idea of what a garden should be.

Lowe's first complaint about natives is that they are rarely green.  Well, this one in Lafayette, photographed by Stephen Ingram, one of the many stunning examples found in California Native Plants for the Garden, certainly is.

Besides,  who says gray-green, as Lowe claims, is dull.  I never hear anyone complain that lavender foliage is dull, or olive trees, or Artemisia ' Powis Castle', the darling of English gardeners.

Natives get too big and rangy, Lowe complains.  Well, not if you choose right. And not if you prune them back every year.  'Iceberg' roses would get rangy, too, if you never took a pruner to them. And 'Powis Castle' gets immense in one year.

They only look good for their "15 minutes of fame", is Lowe's next beef.  Really?  Erigeron glaucus `Bountiful' has never been out of flower since I bought it nearly three years ago.  I can't think of another plant I've gotten as much bloom from.  And coral bells and California fuchsia, it seems to me, have as long a season as any other perennials.

Natives don't mix successfully with more water-hungry plants, says Lowe.  And here I agree with her totally.  You can't just mix natives with anything willy-nilly.  You need a strategy.  Barbara Eisenstein, horticultural outreach coordinator at Rancho Santa Ana, lays out three different approaches in her excellent article on the Rancho's website. Good reading.  I recommend it.

Also take a look at our stories on natives in past issues.

Bottom line:  don't expect me to back off from natives any time soon.  They're not the only solution to drought-tolerant gardening.  They're just the most emotionally rewarding one.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset senior garden writer

A few days ago I showed what might be done with a few bulbs in the landscape, and before that, how to layer them in containers. But today’s lesson is for those who want a landscape that makes cars stop for pictures. These are massed spring-flowering bulbs. You buy and plant them now, at season’s end, because they’re all on sale as nurseries and garden centers are trying to clear space for Thanksgiving and Christmas displays.

The secret is to buy lots of bulbs of the same types, the plant them in color blocks in the landscape (below), or intentionally interplant them in pleasing combinations (above).

The combinations pictured here were photographed at Van Lierop Bulb Farms in Puyallup, Washington.

by Alan Phinney, Sunset managing editor

I discovered this charming Halloween display in my neighborhood in Redwood City, CA. The clever gardener speared mini pumpkins on the sharp tips of a beautiful agave. It's a perfect combo of shapes and colors: spines and ribs, orange and gray. And it gives every passerby a chuckle.

By Sharon Cohoon, Sunset senior garden writer

Something tells me this is a year people will appreciate practical presents.  And what's more practical than food?  Buy your giftees a subscription to a Community Sponsored Agriculture program and save them a little on their food bill every month.  They'll think of you every time they pick up a box of beautiful, fresh, organically grown produce.  And each box will fill like a new present because the contents will vary from month to month.  Some CSA's even tuck in surprises like a jar of honey or cutflowers into their packages. (You'll be helping the farmer, too, so, in a way, it's two gifts in one.)

I've listed a few farms that offer CSA programs below, but there are a lot more on the Local Harvest website.  Just type in your zip code or city and see your options. 

Desert Roots Farm, Phoenix, Arizona

Tucson CSA, Tucson, Arizona

Seabreeze Organic Farms, San Diego, California

Tanaka Farms, Orange County, California

Eatwell Farm, Sacramento, Davis, and the Bay area of California

Sense of Colorado , Denver, Colorado

Los Poblanos Organics, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Wintergreen Farm, Portland, Oregon (also Eugene, Springfield, and surrounding area)

Eden's Garden, Dallas, Texas

The Root Connection, Seattle, Washington

Another option:  If a membership in a CSA is more than you want to spend, consider sending a free-range turkey or chicken, some grass-fed beef, goat cheese, honey, or other locally grown products.  Local Harvest can help here, too.  When you type in your city or zip code to find CSAs, other local food sources will pop up at the same time.

By Jim McCausland, Sunset senior garden writer

Struck by the beauty of a commercial bulb grower’s private garden several years ago, I asked how new gardeners should use tulips in the landscape (click here for tips on using them in pots). She said the best advice was to start small, planting  just 15 or 20 bulbs in a kidney shape among existing shrubs. When the tulips are in flower, your eye is immediately drawn to them. After they fade, the surrounding plants take over.

In the years since, I’ve seen the wisdom of her words played out many times. In the picture above, you can see how it worked out Marilynne Munro’s garden in Sequim, Washington. Now is the time for you to try something similar: bulbs are still in stores, but not for much longer. Plant now and you’ll have flowers in April.