As we Californians approach the months that in other places signal winter, we realize that the four seasons of most places do not apply here. Near the end of the year we begin to experience a combination of three seasons, or what I call "falintering"--a combination of fall, winter and spring. 
 November, December and January are the months to see this phenomenon. It looks like fall because tree leaves are changing color and falling off, the weather is cooling down and warm-season plants are slowing their growth or dying. The winter part is shown by the winter storms, wind and rain, and some frost in cooler areas. Perhaps the most surprising parts of this are the spring phenomena: flowers considered spring blooms elsewhere will burst forth and the rains will spur the germination of seeds of cool-weather plants and wild grass everywhere.
 So what season is it? If Rip Van Winkle from the East woke up here in December and looked around, he would have a hard time deciding. He would notice the bright fall colors of our liquidambars and decide it was fall. But then he might see that the summer and fall vegetables had long ago been harvested and the dead stalks left to rot in the cold rain, and would conclude that it was winter, albeit a rather mild one by his experience. But when he noticed the magnolias blooming, the early narcissus, the plum trees opening their buds, the yellow acacias, he would certainly be confused. 
 All these seasonal features can often be found in a single garden, all the mixed-up features of falintering. It's one of the most engaging experiences for California gardeners. It's one of the delights that makes coastal California a fascinating place for the nature lover. 
 But what is the poor garden-advice writer to do? Should he emphasize autumn tasks such as raking leaves, should he tell the gardener to go indoors and read his seed catalogs while the storms rage, or should he talk about all the spring flowers that are budding and blooming?
 I guess one can pretty well take one's own choice in how to view the season of falintering. We will have a long spring later, so there's no need to rush it. We can think of spring when the fall and winter aspects are clearly gone, the leaves raked up, the weather warming up, the spring blooms in the ascendance. Until then, it's falintering, a unique California experience.

(This article is based on one by the author published several years ago in the San Francisco Examiner--when it was still a Hearst paper.) 
Copyright 2005 by Ed Malmstrom.

E. Malmstrom, webmaster
January 2, 2005.
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