September - Planting season in the Arizona desert

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It's finally September here at The Tropical Paradise, and that means planting season is here. If you're from back east, you can think of this time as if it were spring. It's the time to plant annual flowers, divide bulbs, and plant seeds. If may seem upside down, but it works here. Look around you as you travel around Phoenix. In the next few weeks you will see a lot of new plantings around town, especially annual flowers. The pros know this.

The reason for the reversed planting season here is that it doesn't snow here, and that it gets brutally hot in the summer. So plants that would normally freeze back east won't, and plants that do well in the summer temperatures back east will die in the summer temperatures here. So fall and winter is the time for gardening!

I have lived here in the desert for more years than I care to admit, and it has taken me a long time learn this lesson. Spring and summer are not the right time to plant here! Planting time here is in the fall, the best time being from mid-September through October.

So get planting!

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