Hey jlerwill and imstblnow: I feel the same EXCEPT I'm in a cold Zone 4 and I let go a big sigh when I see all the info on zone 5, 6 & 7. How I envy those zoned winters!!! (OMG, you'd think after 58 years of Iowa winters that I'd stop whinning!) I think I'd like to start a fan club called "Zone 4 with 30 mph north winds from October to April" for people that are crazy enough to LOVE gardening, greenhousing and ponding :-). Sign me up for the "Hi, I'm Beck and I can't be seed, greenhouse or pond free for more than one day" meetings - hee hee. Good luck in Zone 9, I'm sure you fight the heat like we fight the cold! Happy gardening from NW Iowa.

Wait until spring to see how well they both recover. Citrus are amazingly resilient plants. You might be surprised at how well they recover. Allow the leaves to eventually dry up and fall off. They will be replaced with new flush. Continue watering appropriately, and in February put down your first season's fertilizer and hope for consistently warm weather for a nice flush. Patty S.

Marlene, you've going to love it. If you have to move to a new zone and be a 'newbie', it's going to be a helluva lot more easier to go to zone 9 from 5 than to do it like I did, which was the reverse. (Here I'm a total idiot and learning the hard way.) You're going to have a much bigger selection of flowers/plants in that zone than where you're from. You will find that some plants that you considered 'annuals' aren't really over there because the fall/winter doesn't get cold enough to kill them. You will find that certain plants that other parts of the US consider more 'exotic', arent' considered that there. Like here, if I want night blooming Jasmine, I have to buy a 40 dollar plant from a nursery and keep it indoors in the winter. There? I can get one for 7 bucks at Target or in the racks in front of Payless and it's a perennial. It will grow like a weed. If you do Bougenvilla, do it in a very bright exposure. If you plant it in the right place, it will be amazingly beautiful and will grow like a weed. If you do it and it takes off, buy yourself a chain saw. I'm not kidding. Those suckers have thorns and over time, the branches can get thick. Walnut Creek has very hot summer periods. No humidity. No bugs. And not much (if any) rain. That part of the Bay Area (East Bay on the other side of the Oakland Hills) also is far more likely to be concerned with water usage. I've been out of the area for about a year and a half, so I don't know what the deal is right now, but I do know that you're given a basic allotment and if you exceed it, you will have one helluva water bill. So take it slowly with big planting for a few months until you find out what that bill is. At the very least, call and find out the parameters for your location so that you don't get surprises. Oftentimes, water usage for a certain year is based upon the previous year. So if the person that owned your house last year wasn't a big gardener, be extra skippy careful. Using mulch is not optional. It helps to keep the plants from being stressed from the heat and holds water. Containers in the summer will have to be hand watered daily. (Mulch them too.) And even if you have sprinklers, you might be doing that in other areas too. There will be plants that require cold that you won't be able to grow. Peonies don't exist. Lilacs only bloom in certain microclimates. A good book to start with is Sunset's Western Garden Book. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0376038519/102-5973663-2617723?v=glance&n=283155 Winters are very different. You don't do things like blowing out your sprinklers. You don't say goodbye to your lawn mower. And depending upon the weather, you may have to water year around. You may see trees at the end of winter that drop most of their leaves just as the spring buds form. Spring comes much earlier. You'll be pruning roses at the end of January. Gardening is not something that you stop doing, you just slow down. Long rainy periods mean that you don't have to mow! LOL You don't have big fungal problems with lawns over there, but you might trade that for things like rust on the roses during excessively rainy years. And during that time, plan on buying ant stakes. When the weather is really wet (and it hasn't been for awhile), the ants like to come inside. But compared to Japanese beetles and God knows what else the Midwest has, it's a breeze in comparison. Btw, for entertainment purposes, if you're into produce, check out the Berkeley Bowl (a grocery store, obviously in Berkeley). Their meat is not fabulous, but damn, the produce section is to die for! Especially in spring. Andronico's is good too, but it's more expensive... Have fun! I'll shut up now, I'm getting homesick. You're going to do fine!

I'm in Northern California too. I garden mostly with native plants, so all of these are California natives that could work for you: baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii) - annual for shade hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) - perennial for shade blue dicks (Dichelostemma capitatum) - bulb for sun rush rose (Helianthemum scoparium) - perennial for sun blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) - bulb for sun They should all stay under two feet, and they should all be sown ASAP. (It's a shame I didn't see this post sooner, because October sowing would be ideal, but November will do.) They should all normally start blooming in February, although the late sowing might throw their timing off.