Solient green gotta laugh ..Wonder how many know?

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!

There are of course forums in existence for some genera/families that have many members that are cool growing tropicals. However, in each case the true cool growers can be grown only by a minority of people. Moreover, people who grow one type of cool-growing plant are likely to grow others. To put it all in one forum makes sense. There are a lot of practical considerations, for example, trading. Say, for example, one has seedlings/rooted cuttings of a plant that can only grow in Coastal California or a cool greenhouse. Post on any of the forums. Most of the people (in my experience) who will be interested in trading have conditions that are impossible for growing the plant. Here are the options: 1) Let them worry about it and send the plant to a sure death. 2) Caution them that it won't survive, but send it anyway. 3) Refuse to send the plant to those without appropriate conditions. Since this thread is a little boring with no pictures, I'll add one, to include two concrete examples: '' The Passiflora is P. 'Mission Dolores', P. parritae x antioquiensis. It's a strong grower when happy and really easy to propagate. Two node cuttings root in a couple weeks. The Bomarea on the top is Bomarea caldasii (the yellow flower on the right is also a Bomarea, if I remember possibly a variety of B. caldasii as well). Each flower produces about 100 seeds and each umbel can have dozens of flowers. So there are potentially thousands of seeds per umbel. The flowers above are "samples" brought by one of the propagators (who created the Passiflora hybrid) to help sell plants at Strybing (SF Botanical Garden). The Passilflora is 7 inches in diameter with 18-24 inch peduncles, which makes the Bomarea umbels look strangely small. Although I cannot claim credit for the flowers, I do grow both of these vines. I'll have to hack back my Passiflora starting later in the year. I hate to toss material for interesting plants. So I'll hopefully have a large number of cuttings rooted. My Bomarea was bought in bloom/bud earlier this year, but aborted seeds when we had a couple days in the 90s (June-Aug. average: 74/55). So if I end up with extra cuttings and seeds and want to distribute them for postage, which forum(s) do I post on? I likely will put the Passiflora on the Passiflora forum, although I know I will run into the problem described above. I've already decided to go for option (3). There is no appropriate forum for the Bomarea. Vines? California? If I end up with a zillion seeds I might go for option (2). Or perhaps suggest that people sprout the seeds then trade them for something suited to their climate. I don't like either scenario, and I would prefer to at least have the forum enriched for those who can potentially succeed with a plant. I tried posting a set of seeds for postage on the California Gardening exchange section earlier in the year. Of seven, three were highland tropicals, one a cool-growing Chilean annual, one S. African, and one lowland tropical. I didn't get a single response. See link below Here is a link that might be useful: Highland tropical seeds ignored on the California forum

I started out on the Florida Gardening Forum, then found this one, and I spend the most time on these two. I have visited others out of curiosity: Pets, Sewing, Natives, Garden Junk, Recipes, Cookware, and some others. I think all of them are of value, but Quilting on the whole has the most supportive people who are willing to welcome newbies and share their knowledge and at the same time are comfortable in asking for advice without feeling intimidated. I posted a question once on one forum about a certain type of conifer that I had just bought and was derided for only buying the common stuff found at the big box stores so I knew right away they weren't very welcoming of non-experts' participation. So it seems that there are some forums that only encourage expert participation which is fine if you're searching for an answer to a question but not too friendly for us unwashed people who don't know everything about everything! I'm with Rosa, life is too short for grumps and trolls.