I suppose it depends on whether or not you're a native, whether your yard is established or new construction and whether or not you have a good irrigation system.
My experience in Ct. was rich sandy loam. We never mulched anything. If you put it in the ground and it liked the amount of sun it got, then it grew well.
As compared to new construction down here (2x) where the soil was not top soil, there was sandstone outcroppings all over the place and you needed a pick ax and a toothed shovel to plant anything.
You might get a spot started only to find the bottom of the hole was solid bull tallow clay. Might also be two layers of roofing shingles.
Planting down here takes a lot more time and effort and you really need to amend the soil and then mulch it to keep the moisture in and the soil cooler.
But , for the overall weather and the ability to garden nearly all year long..it's definitely worth it !

I agree with Dottie, it all depends what your comparing to. For me, its the easiest place I've ever gardened. I've got sandstone too, my girlfriend even thought I had concrete patio way out in our field.
But I think the sandstone is way easier than the hard compacted dried cracked concrete like clay we had in Dallas. Water just ran off it in the summer and then never drained in the winter. 47+ consecutive days of 100+ temps didn't make for much gardening fun either.
In south FL it was pure sand. Mulch was required. Lots of plants just wouldn't hold up to the heat, humidity and salt air or they loved it too much and you'd prune 3x a year just so you could find your front door.
I think that the quantity of varieties that will grow here are amazing. Dallas was limited to drought proof plants and FL was tropic plants (think house plants only in the ground). Here you can drive around and see neglected homes and they'll have daffodils, azaleas, hydrangeas, dogwood, redbud, flowering quince and old fashioned roses. I'm talking about the places that haven't even seen a mower in years. so you know noone is watering, fertilizing or pruning those. I want those types of plant in my yard. The ones that will grow in spite of me. But I also think that plant selection is important. Don't put in a shrub that grows to 10' under your windows, you'll spend all your time pruning.

So far, NC gardening has been the biggest reward for the amount of effort and $, especially if you can make it to some of the plant swaps. There's a wealth of knowledge at those swaps.

Good luck and maybe check out the Raleigh swap later this month. I've known people to come from SC just for this swap.

We moved into our new home last Oct., and we've done lots of planting. The site is on old farm land, so much of the soil is fantastic (sandy topsoil). However, where the foundation was excavated, the builder spread the unearthed clay. In the vicinity of the house, there are a few inches of clay before getting to topsoil. In a new development where they level large areas, I'm sure it's quite a bit harder to find topsoil on the property. So, the situation will vary widely. Regardless, soil can always be improved, and mulch is your friend.

On another note, the long warm weather period and mild winter means many things can be grown here that cannot be grown elsewhere in the country. If you work at it, you can have flowers year round. I think mostly it's a matter of keeping sensitive plants irrigated and using plants adapted to the area in general. I think it's a great place to garden.

I don't mind the heat or the humidity of the four months out of the year we have to worry about it. I can work through both of them with no problem. The knats however drive me crazy and make working outside for a couple of months totally aggravating. That is my only complaint besides the lack of rain but I think that is only specific to my three acres of sand. Other than that I love living and gardening in NC. Adele

Thanks for your input I gardened in Portland Oregon
garden paradise I could grow almost everything,I have
driven around to see what is growing am finding not many
display gardens or homes with gardens so it is making it
tough to put together a plant list by home with out gardens
I mean not just foundation plantings and some annuals
in Portland entire front yards would be gardens no lawns
there were home with lawns but still really cool gardens
that is what I am not seeing,also since I am from the city of roses I would like some input on growing roses here I grew
some forty verities back home,hydrangeas were another of my
favorites
thank again
Blueangel

It's true that gardens aren't very common here, except for shrub plantings such as azaleas. Roses will be harder to grow here than in Oregon because of disease issues but it can be done. Of my roses so far the best performers have been Mermaid, Climbing Old Blush, Sir Robert Lipton (hybrid of R. alba and Clotilde Soupert), Mutabilis, Sombreuil, Rugosa alba, Rugosa Purple Pavement, Swamp rose (Rosa palustris hybrid from Antique Roses Emporium), the species Rosa palustris, and Rosa carolina. I never spray. Hybrid teas are a total pain here unless you want to spray and spray. Chinas, teas and noisettes are supposed to be the way to go in the south. I've had some trouble with mine because they've been planted in amended soil that is probably overly rich for them. That causes them to put out a lot of tender new growth in one season that then succumbs to canker over the winter.

Lots of people have hydrangeas and they do well here, especially if mulched and watered when young so they don't get stressed out too much. I have oak-leaved and it doesn't need any pampering at all.

Yes, there is way too much emphasis on lawns in the southeast. So much room that can be used for perennials, shrubs, trees ...! Blueangel, help lead by example and show your neighbors what a "garden" can be.

Alicia thanks for the rose info I grew shrub and English
esh ga if I do that they might run me out of NC LOL.

Blueangel

Yes thats it...lead by example. I remember when we moved into our first house in PGH. I started a garden in our postage stamp sized back yard. The neighbors liked to tell me that I couldn't grow things in that hard clay. Well I turned the whole backyard into one huge garden, had people walking up and down the alley to see it. Not long after other people started doing the same. By the time we moved there were many whole yard gardens in our neighborhood. Adele

disadvantage: deer! if they roam your neighborhood, they will love you for planting hosta, roses and hydrangeas outside of a fence.

Yes, there is so much lawn and too few gardens. Many times, it can be due to neighborhood covenants. We have to keep our two acre meadow in grass yet they make us keep it mowed below 9" high or we get fined. I would just love to fill it up with wildflowers and keep a neatly mowed walking path along the road and driveway.

advantages: I have lived here my whole life and grew up with a family that gardened for food and flowers. As long as you understand Mother Nature, you can grow what seems like an endless list. I highly recommend (if you haven't done so already) visiting JC Raulston Arboreteum (Raleigh), NC Botanical Gardens (Chapel Hill), Duke Gardens (Durham), NC Arboreteum (Asheville). Duke has a gorgeous rose garden. There is also a nice rose garden around the sundial in front of the Morehead Planetarium, UNC-Chapel Hill.

For a price, Biltmore Gardens are beautiful. Many of our towns and cities have garden tours, so see if you can connect with one near you. You'll see wonderful examples of what you can grow here besides the standard azaleas and crepe myrtles.

there's a tucked away little rose garden in raleigh alongside raleigh little theater that's worth visiting as well. it's behind hillsborough street on pougue.

i do think that you can set an example by gardening! i gets lots of comments on mine, and aside from my own pleasure in it, it keeps me going. i've noticed since we've started ours, that several along our main drag have gardened more intensively. i don't know if ours was any influence, but it certainly didn't hurt. actually, thinking about it, right in about a 1 mile radius, we are lucky, because there are a good many gardeners. still waaaay too many lawns, but it takes 1 step at a time.

Thanks wonbyherwits I was wondering if there were garden
tours or walks they were popular in Portland I would do at least fifteen of them a year only because of conflict of
schedules or conflicting dates there were just way to many
to do them all.I did one year do three in one day,to much
so I limited myself to one or two a day

Blueangel

kudzu
clay soil
Freak "winter storm" in April (happens pretty much every year it seems from one degree to another, should have known better to plant anything and then stubbornly not cover at first sign of bad weather)
bugs, bugs, and more bugs

But, I do like the milder weather. Gives me the chance to grow things my poor MIL in Indiana can't even think of growing. And even if she can grow it, she doesn't do so to nearly June. She loves the cannas and other stuff that does well here. There is a lot that grows well here that won't overwinter there. You would have to dig up bulbs, rhizomes, etc EVERY YEAR. I just let mine stay in the ground, unless it is something really pricey or rare.

pros:
-large selection of plants, which makes it possible for many different looks
-long growing season,
-mild winter weather lets you garden year round (at least you can get a lot of pruning out of the way and prepare new beds etc before the growing season)
-compared to even further south, we still have 4 seasons

cons:
-fire ants
-soil that's hard to dig in - I just load topsoil on top, though.
-In the heat of the summer you need to get out early in the morning to do any physical work.

I agree about the gnats. Yuck ! Can't seem to get anything done outside sometimes because of the durn bugs. And the deer... they just seem to mosey around the back , at all hours of the day. They love roses.
I love the long growing season here. In the three years I have lived here, I must say that I have put more amendments into the soil than I ever did before. it is beginning to help, so soon, I'll have real dirt.

For me:
Advantage: Flowers all winter long

Disadvantages: Bugs (the aphids seemed to be worse this year and ate up a lot of my pansies & violas)... and of course the dreaded japanese beetle.

My neighbours have 6 or more rose bushes and the japanese beetles just eat them bare in the summer. They have found that the beetles are attracted more to the scented roses, and usually leave their less scented roses alone. Their roses do make a come back after the beetles leave, but those rose bushes are positively bare for most of June/July.

I'd have to agree that a big "pro" is the wide variety of plants that will grow here. It's not unlimited and from time to time I run across something that sounds wonderful only to discover that it will never do with our he!!ish summers.

Which brings me to the biggest "con". It gets so outrageously hot in late summer that many things just wilt or disappear...including gardeners!

This is my 5th year gardening here and I too have never had an aphid problem until now. I wonder whats up with that?

they've been bad this year. it comes & goes. i think the mild winter didn't help. though i noted this late freeze didn't seem to kill them... sigh...

I too am a transplant from the PNW but after 30 years of gardening here I think that this is the better of the two. I grow everything here that I could grow there with the exception of the 'Blue poppy' Meconopsis, so far no luck with that one (if I could get one started though I might be able to keep it going, HAHA). I do have a bit of trouble with primulas too, I miss those.
Soil amendment is the key but once you work it out growing is a breeze. The lack of rain causes some problems but not as many as I experienced from the sometimes endless cloudy rainy days that caused mildew and root rot. Planting out small plants in the summer can be a problem so I concentrate on perennials, and get them in early enough in the fall so they get established before winter, annuals I either winter sow or direct sow.
I hope that you end up with the positive experience that I have had. Welcome to NC, Les

Glad I checked the forums! We're moving to Winston-Salem in a couple of weeks having lived 5 yrs in VA. Prior to that, I grew up and lived in South GA. Now there's mesquitos & gnats!!! However, in VA, I've had the best soil and transplanted my GA plants (day lilies, hosta, iris, etc.) and found they grew like they'd been fertilized!!! I keep looking at that red dirt in Carolina and wondered how well plants grow there and what I needed to know. I see some beautiful yards and figured it can't be too bad! I'll definitely be checking in frequently since I do love my yard & plants!

My experience is that EVERY location will have it's up's and downs/good and bad...It's all a matter of how you choose to deal with it. I've lived in the tropics of South America, the Rocky Mountain area of northern New Mexico, the coast of Lake Erie in Ohio as well as in Boston. Each place has its plusses and minuses. I grew great roses in Boston and here in CHarlotte but could never grow the spectacular oriental poppies, penstemons, agastache or delphiniums that I was so absolutlely in love with in New Mexico. I enjoy growing Camelias, hellebores and fall blooming salvia that won't grow in any of the other areas. Then again, I had orchids galore in my backyard in Paraguay that I can only grow in pots here...
As long as I can grow plants I'm happy!!!

I just moved here (Durham) from Massachusetts and so far, I'm enjoying it. It seems that most of the plants I really loved in Mass will grow here (with a few exceptions) and I will get to grow some of the Southern plants I remember from my childhood (originally from Florida) as well.

love2gardennc - I don't know where you are in NC, but Camellia Forest in Chapel Hill has heat tolerant primulas that they developed themselves. I put a couple in my shade garden, and so far they're doing great. If you aren't close enough to drive to them, they probably ship. Wonderful nursery - I was thrilled to discover them. The website is camforest.com

pros: not be covered by a layer of dirty snow from november to may. color in the winter a long lovely growing season. having color in the winter
cons: things can get pretty rough in august--focus on how tasty the tomatoes look
I think the overabundance of lawns is a symptom of poor new development. If you look at the old neighborhoods in raleigh or durham you will find lots and lots of gardens. The new developments are clear cut and topped with bad soil. They also tend to be filled with a lot of people new to the area that don't know how to grow things here

There's lots of older houses and places that do not have covenants and they don't have gardens either. Where I live I could drive in a 10 mile radius and count the number of gardens on one hand. It's sad. I think there's many people who have lived here a long time who doesn't know what does well here.

I have noticed that on Gimghoul Road in Chapel Hill many people have added a lot to their gardens -- I think it has to do with how beautiful and famous the sisters' garden is.

I'd love any suggestions anyone can give me about gardening in the South Carolina sand hills! I've only been seriously trying my hand at real gardening for a few years... I've had some successes but some very expensive failures, also! The soil where I live in Lexington County, SC, in the midst of a rural oak-pine forest setting is not great... mostly sand. There's great drainage but apparently little nourishment. It gets REALLY hot and dry here in the summer, too, but winters are very mild. Any help sent my way is much appreciated!

Hi Claudia. You need to amend heavily. And then you need to amend heavily again. After that you need to amend again and then every year after that. That is basically the key. I have tried all different kinds of things to amend the sand and find the very best amendment to be partially decomposed pine fines (soil conditioner). We have a great place locally that sells a 'nursery mix' which consists of the pine fines with added lime and micronutrients. All the beds that I amended heavily using this mix have a gorgeous loamy black soil now with lots of worms. I did not top dress with this mix this year but used truckload after truckload of local free compost and am not happy with the results. This fall I will top dress with the nursery mix again.

When I first arrived here I heard talk about the sand eating up the compost and I have found that it is true. You need to amend heavily in order to really be able to sustain a garden. I have shrubs planted out in the landscape that I did not amend so heavily and they are surviving but not thriving.

I plan to amend all my beds every fall for the rest of my life....sigh. Adele

Adele, you are exactly right. It is an ongoing battle. But I do have a question - I've been gardening this sandbox for 3 years now and have managed to get some perennials established. How do you amend your perennial beds? Do you have any special techniques that work well? Do you just side dress? Do you work the organic stuff in at all?

Good luck, Claudia. It is a huge challenge to garden in this type of soil (AND this heat!) but every success is a triumph!

Hi Linda, I am going to topdress every fall. I have already amended all my beds three times and that is enough ha. I will topdress and ask the worms to pleeeeze work it in. Seriously though I have found that when mulching either with bigger fines or the small ones that the soil just underneath is richer. So I think that it will work fine (at least that is my theory and fondest wish). Adele

Thanks, Linda and Adele (or is it Dellare?)! (And here I was hoping y'all were going to tell me I didn't have to work so hard!) Dell - can you share a brand name on that mix you've had such success with? Also, how would you suggest beginning a brand new bed (or restarting an old one) to get the best results?

One thing I have had success with are impatiens and azaleas... we have lots of shade trees. I planted beds of impatiens last year and they were beautiful, but I think the reason they did so well was that I completely dug the beds out and replaced all the soil with potting soil (I didn't know what else to do)! I haven't replanted those particular beds yet... I've been going crazy with container gardening this year. I do plan on replanting them, however... thanks for the tip about amending again, otherwise I would have thought that I could rely on last year's work!

One annual I've used that doesn't seem to care where I put it or how poorly I treat it is vinca. And my gerbera daisies keep coming back... the leaves are always big and lush but the flowers do better if I use Miracle Gro (any thoughts on that particular product?)

I'm thinking of planting some ajuga, also. I love it in the containers I'm using this year and think it might do well in a couple of my beds. Any advice is much appreciated!

Again, thanks for the help... many gardening blessings upon you!

Claudia

Claudia, I've had shockingly good results with hostas (who knew?!) that have turned out to be fairly drought tolerant even in this sandbox. With your shady spaces you might give those a try. (Do add compost first...I'm sure mine would be doing better if they had gotten more than a shovel full of composted manure!)

Adele, my dh keeps suggesting that I dig up all the perennials and move them temporarily so he can rototill my flowerbeds when I add compost!! YIKES!

Hostas, hmmm? Any particular type?

And dare I ask what "dh" stands for?? ;-)

Thanks, Linda!

Claudia

Linda, I have done that twice to my first beds which are right in front of the house. Twice is enough cause I have tons of perennials in those beds. Try top dressing this fall. If you use pine fines mixed with lime and an organic fertilizer such as espoma, manure or even cottonseed meal you would probably be close to the mix I use.

Claudia, its interesting you mentioned container gardening. I have some vast patches of open sand on the right side of my house and have been making little pot groupings. One grouping has six different kinds of hydranga, a grouping of grasses and another group with chartruse and variegated shrubs. I have other miscellanoues pots here and there. They go a long way to putting some life into that dismal area. In that area is also a grouping of camellias and a grouping of dogwood and redbud. The dogwood and redbud I bought as saplings from our county extension office for 79 cents a sapling. They are currently about three feet high and very healthy. They offered a nice variety of saplings and I could kick myself for not getting the crabapple and persimmon. Check your local paper or extension office to see if they are going to have such a sale. The camellias and tree saplings will be planted out in the fall. I also find I can grow the things that have not survived in the sand easily in pots such as hydranga, various shrubbery and anemone.

I've had good luck with forsythia and crepe mrytle bushes 'little chief' planted in slightly amended sand. They are a couple of really tough, drought tolerant shrubs.

Adele is my name by the way. Dellare is my webname and was my nickname when I was a baby given to me by my aunt. She was a catholic nun and LOVED babies. She would expeditiously steal them at every family picnic and then proceed to twirl us around, hugging and kissing us while repeating our names. Mine is Adele Marie so Adele Marie eventually became dellare. She still calls me that when I see her. Adele

Hi Adele! What I've been doing with the containers is buying interesting posts whenever I see a good deal (my mother-in-law finds them at garage for me, also) and mixing large and small sizes and interesting shapes and colors. I love the really large containers... I fill the bottom with packing peanuts, crushed aluminum cans or plastic bottles to take up space... it makes for good drainage, too!

Now it's interesting to me that you mentioned saplings... my husband practically has a tree nursery going! There are lots of Japanese maples around his office building and every spring tiny little trees sprout up all around the trunks. He digs them up and brings them home in paper cups and plants them in old plastic pots... we must have 20 or thirty by now, all different sizes. I recently put the largest one, about 4 feet tall and, I think, 2 seasons old, in a container with varigated vinca and forget me nots... so pretty! We have literally dozens of trees of all kinds - loquats, pecans, redbud, dogwood, all kinds of conifers, and more - growing in the "nursery"... he really wants to build a greehouse but I'm not sure of the best kind... ideas, anyone?

DH = Dear Hubby. (usually).

Sometimes the D stands for Darn - or worse, but not usually, LOL.

@blueangel One thing that really grows well down here is strawberries and blackberries. I bought 20 strawberry plants a couple years ago and last year I gave away 150 and still have quite a few for my own use. I moved the bed this year so I didn't get many this year. I don't have much shade, so nothing that won't live in full sun will survive. My land used to be a tobacco farm. I have had to go to raised beds to overcome years of abuse and neglect and the one real crop that does well. Rocks.

@ deborahz7

Thanks, but you can keep those pests to yourself. I think that I found a solution to them. Every year I have tried to go without any spraying and it always seems to be at this time of the year that I need to spray when those nasties come back. Last weekend I trimming around the garden when I noticed that there were a whole bunch of ladybugs on a couple different wildflowers (weeds) near my garden edge. I left them and the flowers so that they would have a place to live until the veggies are bigger and they can move over to them. So far so good. No infestations on the veggies and no sevin. The worms are thanking me.

Pros:
I am excited that I can plant a lot of bulbs that I don't have to lift during winter: begonias, callas, dahlias, etc. I can grow plants that I never could back in MA, such as camellias, gardenias and hibiscus. Vinca and petunias, my annuals that would never came back in MA, reseeded themselves and grew prolifically this year, so much so, that I had to go out and buy about 6 more window box containers. They'll keep on blooming into at least October, perhaps even November. As a good friend said, they last so long, you almost want to kill them!!

I'm looking forward to making more informed plant decisions this fall and next spring. From now on, I'm only planting deer resistant, drought tolerant, and insect resistant plantings. The past two years, I had such a large areas to cover that I was just putting in plants to fill in the huge expanses, but from now on, I'm going to put in smart plant choices. I can't tell you how excited I am to start gathering my information, researching my possibilities and then putting it all toghter.

Cons:
Bugs and pests. Maybe due to the harsh winters in MA, I never really ran into problems with pests. Everything I planted seemed to do just fine with a little bit of routine care, such as watering and feeding. It seems like everything that I've planted here, are plants that are prone to being infested by something. NOT my idea of enjoyable gardening. I prefer plants that you can just water 'em and forget about 'em. Also the clay soil is just unbelievable to dig in. I have several areas of my yard, that I'd love to plant little shade gardens, and I literally cannot get the shovel in to turn over the ground. I've mulched it, and hope in a year or two, it will soften enough to get to the point to I can at least get the blade of the shovel into the cement, er dirt. And the heat is unbelievable. After 2 years, I'm still not used to it. Last year, I gave up watering everything because my daughters were just too young and they couldn't take the heat at all long enough for me to water. This year, they're now 4 and almost 3 (practically grown-ups if you ask them LOL) and they love to help me water everything.

I don't consider the red clay a disadvantage becuase it can be ammended.
Pros: nice springs and falls
I have no idea what you plan to plant but these are my choices.
Cons: humidity,japanese Beetles, aphids, blackspot, PM, droughts, late freezes, THRIPS
My sister used to live in Portland and it is beautiful. Weather here is quite different. I hope you enjoy it here.

Carla

Annual flowers last for 9 months. Never sure when to pull the summer flowers to add winter flowers. Everything I take a cutting of and just stick in the ground grows! Seeds from all kinds of flowers volunteer. Stuff grows really fast.
The Bad? I have sand and I can hardly keep enough water and fertlizer on the garden. I needed over thirty pickup load of manure to get my garden started. Lots of veggies are hard to grow.

Advantages:
It's hot. We can grow lots of great sub-tropical stuff, but winters are cool enough we can also grow hostas and some other things that need a cool dormacy period. Winters are mild enough that lots of annuals come back or re-seed just fine. Sand is easy to dig in and easily ammended.

Disadvantages:
It's hot. Hostas melt by late august. I melt by noon or so. It's too humid for lilacs.