Yes, the winter half of the year will be overcast most all of the time. Temperatures will be cold for 40% of the year, but not extremely so. Most of the time this cold will be just above the freezing point, sometimes just a little bit below. The air is cool and damp. Summer is the driest time of the year, but the summers are short (compared to US standards). The weather though is amazing in summer, just the right temperature, very mild, not too hot, and everything is lush green and bursting with life. By Canadian standards, the climate in Vancouver is considered virtually "subtropical", but that is compared to the rest of Canada. Expect to wear a rain resistant jacket for much of the year. Due to the nature of the rain, constant light drizzle often blowing in with a light wind, umbrellas are not very practical. Puff jackets are the common clothing item. Due to the latitude, the winter time of the year will have very short day length, but the summer time will have very long days. This difference will be noticeable compared to US cities, even including New York and Chicago. During the winter, the nighttime temperatures are almost the same as the days, but during the drier summer half of the year, the nights can get very cool to almost kind of cold. The cost of housing in Vancouver is overpriced. It can be unaffordable for many people to live there. The city has many cultural amenities, but not especially so compared to the biggest US cities.

Katy-did, You can dig and weed around native plants as long as you don't get TOO close. If a plant is kept in place, you could dig a weed as close as the outer edges of the leaves without damaging the roots too much. You could add woodland wildflowers in spots that currently have lawn grasses or weeds. You probably will find some weeds like dandelions, plantain, and other lawn weeds. You could dig these up and put new wildflowers instead. If there is not too much lawn grass to remove, then it could be done with small tools (hand trowel, etc) close to existing wildflowers. Larger areas could be turned over with a shovel. If you want to convert areas that don't have many wildflowers you can simply cover the grass and weeds with lots of fall leaves. The leaves will smother most of the grass and decay to enrich the soil and make it more like a woodland soil, which will help encourage woodland wildflowers. If you have an area with only a few wildflowers, you could move the wildflowers then either turn over the grass with a shovel then mulch with leaves, or simply mulch with leaves and wait. To move a wildflower dig up a piece of the ground with the wildflower in it and move it intact to a new location. I use a standard garden shovel to move a piece of ground about a foot in diameter at the surface and about a foot or s15 inches deep. This works for most large wildlfowers. For really small ones you could move a smaller piece of earth. If you keep the ground intact and therefore preserve the contact between the roots and the soil you should be able to move most wildflowers. Try to avoid separating the roots from the soil - there are many very small roots and even smaller strands of fungus that connect a root to the soil which are destroyed if a plant is moved bare root. Some plants will recover, but some may not so it is best to keep the soil and the plant together. Place the wildflower and soil in the ground so that the surface of the soil matches the surface in the new location, and carefully fill cracks around the edges of the soil ball with more soil.

August or up to mid September is going to be your safest bet for good weather. But if you come early, come to Port Townsend which is in a rain shadow and gets a lot less rain than Seattle. Port Townsend can be a day trip from seattle, but if I were you I'd stay overnight or for a couple of nights and enjoy the olympic peninsula. Port Townsend is one of only three true victorian seaports in the US. From here you can drive an hour to Port Angeles and visit the parks or take the ferry to victoria (walk over on the ferry) and do a day trip there or two (everythign is in walking distance from the ferry dock or there is a tour available like buchart gardens (which are beyond fabulous in May and June). In Seattle do the Pike one day, the underground and the old town another, the zoo is great, and walking on the waterfront is a treat. Eat at...gad it's a letter...Z or Y? up about 5th street if you're a wine drinker (lovely selection of wines and cheeses). Dinner at the Brooklyn is a fancy night of fun, wonderul food and a really educational oyster bar as well as a great wine list. It's old fashioned seattle glamour at it's best. Bainbridge island is a fun visit. You can walk on the ferry and then up a block into town to enjoy the day, but I'd drive over (on the ferry) and enjoy a bit more of the island. If you love nordic vikings and all of their blonde buxom wonder, drive from bainbridge to poulsbo (about 30 mins) and park downtown on the water. Sly's bakery is worth the wait, but there are several that are wonderful. I get all of my "home made" pies at another bakery there (they sell them in glass dishes so you can lie and say you made them....oh geeze now if you have pie at my house you know my secret LOL). Lots of antique stores, stuff from norway (even a king or queen on occasion visits) and historic housing. Not as good as Port Townsend, but still worth the visit. PT is another 40 mins across the floating bridge on the hood canal. It's full of wonderful eclectic artists, druids from the 16th century, (I swear that's what those burlap wearing people are) and odd balls like me :) Antique shopping in Seattle is something you can do all day if you have an inkling. If you like modern shopping, hit bellevue mall. Or just wander around downtown seattle. What else can I tell you? :)

My Eternal Fragrance has loads of flowers right now on a small 2ft plant but it's hard for me to smell it unless I get within a foot of the flowers. I think it's because my climate doesn't have prime conditions for scent to travel far. But on the other hand, for Daphne odora, even a small spray of flowers on a starter plant, can pierce through the lowest humidity and waft a few yards away. Which says a lot for D. odora because most flower scents are not able to do that here.