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A retired teacher and recent transplant from Zone 6, I live in Middle GA, on the cusp between Zones 7 and 8. I garden on a partially-wooded acre of GA soil on a relatively steep slope except where the land was levelled to put the house. My soil consists of 3-4 inches of developer topsoil atop kaolin (gray clay: slimy and impermeable when wet; concrete-hard and impermeable when dry). I have put in 7 beds since we purchased the place two years ago, including a fern bed, hosta border, bulb bed which is an impatiens shade bed in summer, rock garden, and several other mixed-use beds of perennials, small flowering shrubs, bulbs and annuals. We added an irrigation system and sod when we redid the hardscape of retaining walls and new bridge over the stream running through the property. We cut down six enormous sweetgums which were too close to the house. I have a severe deer and slug/snail problem. I'm already tired of the ubiquitous azaleas, camellias, cannas, lantana, lorapetalum, beach grasses and liriope that landscapers are so enamored of, but the heat, deer, fire ants and snails/slugs pretty much make the growing of other things too onerous in terms of labor and even environmentally-safe chemicals.

I live in: United States

My zone is: Z 7 GA

First registered on January 27,2004.