It's not too late! I'm in your zone but in North Georgia. I've just started winter sowing this past week. I also have red clay. Red clay is usually high in nutrients but lacking in organic matter. You should be able to drastically improve your soil with adding organic matter. I've found the best way to improve my clay soil is laying down builders paper and or cardboard and then covering with a thick mulch of things like straw, hay, leaves etc. The worms will show up under the paper and start breaking it all down and aerating the hard clay underneath and bringing organic matter into it. I also do raised beds but I don't want my whole yard raised beds iykwim. With my raised beds I've just had truckloads of landscapers mix brought in. The clay will take some time to improve though. I'm working on improving most of my yard and it's an acre. The soil was worse than average with all the topsoil having been scraped off and not even grass would grow in most places. :/ I've ordered from Diane's, Swallowtail Seed's and Fedco Seeds this winter. Fedco sells more vegetable seeds but I really like their flower and herb selection because they do have some good things and they offer a LOT of seed for far less than the average asking price. So I buy flower seed from them every year when I order my vegetable garden seeds. My plan this year is to start focusing on seed saving though so I don't have to buy so darn much! Good luck with your new yard!

The butterwort is similar to pinguicula primuliflora. You won't need to wait to spring to divide them since all your plants are tropical It's your choice if you want to divide them.But if I were you I would leave them the way they are. Good luck, Adrian

Actually, that was the side I didn't do anything to other than cut a few of the larger berry bushes at the bottom of the hill. That birch is in rough shape and without staking it up and waiting several years, it won't survive. I would just assume take it down since it's not really in a great location anyway. I hate to do it since they are becoming relatively scarce due to disease and insects. This picture http://minus.com/lbx4OfKnwRF4xc shows what are definitely blackberry/raspberry bushes. I wouldn't mind having them, in fact I would welcome having a ton more, just not here. Being on the slope they will not be easy to get to when the mature and have fruit. If there was a way to transplant them or something I would love to hear it. I had tried it in the past, but the only way I have ever seen them grow was by accident and negligence. Based on the size of a few of the lower bushes, I would bet they may produce a limited amount of fruit. The smaller ones at the top of the hill however are definitely not mature enough from my experience. Going off on a tangent... I loved having berry bushes growing up and we had a large sandy area on my parent's property that they grew like crazy in. They eventually began to die off and my dad chopped them all down. The began to come back by the time I went to college, but it took a while to get any amount of fruit from them. My last year at college I rented a small cottage on a back road that had the biggest patch of black raspberries I had ever seen. I started picking as soon as they began to ripen and then ever couple days for the next 3 weeks. I stopped for lack of room in the freezer for 1gal ziplock bags. I made at least a dozen pint jars of jam and a few quarts. I gave a bunch away but i'm hoarding the last few of the "good" batch for myself. :) So in other words, I would love to have berry bushes, just not where they are. A lot of what you see on the ground on the left side (looking from the house) is debris and not much in the way of live plants other than some weeds. Obviously it is still very early here and not much has come up yet though. The tree shown in the background of this picture http://minus.com/lbwhVJrx76OE9d appears to be planted from what is left of the mulch/preparation around the base. This shot http://minus.com/lvFny84VUSjeW shows a rock swail that comes down from what is left of the last owners fish pond sort of thing. There is a reddish low lying plant growing on either side that I failed to get a close up picture of. It appears that it will look nice later in the spring but needs some weeding and/or mulching. I will take your advice and try posting some pictures on the "name that plant" forum. In the meantime, would I benefit from getting some sort of tall meadow grass mix to put down in a few weeks? *whoops, I wrote a book

If I were you, I would choose the forum that best suits your plants. For example, I grow a lot of fruit and edible plants; I also trade plants and seeds and hvae a vegetable garden. I post on these forums, fruit, vegetables, plant trade, seed trade, gardening, edible landscape and Virginia.