I cut back my type 3 clems in the fall, usually in November after a killing frost. Some years, like this one, before the killing frost but with frost expected and late enough to know that they will not start new growth until spring. Also treat most of my type 2s as 3s and cut them back at the same time. Edited to add: I use my aluminium hedge shears all during the gardening season. They are wonderful for cutting back, pruning, and for chopping up things for the compost pile. Put plant cuttings into the wheelbarrow or a 5-gal pail and snip, snip then into the compost pile they go. Sometimes I throw a cuttings onto the compost pile and snip them there. This post was edited by mnwsgal on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 21:11

HI, thought I would introduce myself. I'm Maureen, 44 (will be 45 on Thursday :-) . I have a 12 yr old son Michael whom I live for, and my dog Lucky - a 3 yr old black lab who is my very best buddy in the world. I also have a crazy cat named Tiger and a russian tortoise named Spikes. I love gardening, roses, daylilys, plumeria, clematis and african violets. I'm going through a rough time in my life right now, my husband just told me 2 wks ago that he is not happy and left. He is getting on with his life so I guess eventually there will be a divorce. It broke my heart but with friends and family prayers and support I'm doing better today than I was 2 wks ago. If any of you pray, if you would pray for me and my son I would be so very grateful. I work f/t for a Union and have been there for 10 years. It is strictly a financial thing---i'm not really a "career lady" - just need to pay the mortgage and have a home for me and my son Michael. I come from a large family, have 4 sisters and 1 brother. Mom and Dad are divorced for 10 years now and live locally. Dad is remarried, Mom's single. I'm close with my Mom, she is a gardener too. We go for walks together, shop together and work out at the gym too. I'll go see if I can find some pics to post so you can see me and my son and pets. Nice to read about everyone here, look forward to getting friendly with you all. Maureen p.s. I started with daylilys last year, and ended the season with about 80 named varieties. I've purchased another 15 from Maryott's this week and am sure when I get some money for my birthday next week I'll have more I want to order. I bought most of my daylilys from Flynn's daylily garden. Ida is a great lady and her daylilys are awesome. And I traded for some of my daylilys. This summer I will get to see most of them bloom -- can't wait.

Adrienne in Thousand Oaks: Regarding UC Verde Buffalo Grass, we installed it June 2021 so can attest to how it took watering twice a day to establish, then less frequently until we were watering twice a week with good results; I live in Thousand Oaks and were restricted to watering once a week for 15 minutes which was a good soak and it survived the limited watering last summer. When first planted as plugs we had a lot of weeds but it eventually filled in and is very thick. What we don't like is that is it dormant and brown in color from November to March; it has been slowly turning green in the last few weeks now that it is spring. It requires very little mowing, about once a month at most from spring to fall. The only way to buy it in Southern California is from FloraSource Ltd. They ship it as plugs in flats so it is labor intensive to have it installed; cost is twice that of sod.

Chris, Farmers' Almanac, I think, has our frost dates as April 14 and October 22nd. I think Dave's Garden is a bit more accurate from experience, at least for our area. I very much like their moon sowing articles and guides, and their growing guides are very informative. Their weather forecast always seems to be fairly good as well considering how far in advance it is made. I guess the groundhog has predicted 6 more weeks of winter. I have a feeling this spring is going to be very sporadic, as it has been all winter. I kind of hope that it won't be like spring in 2014 where we woke up to 2-3" of snow on May 3rd. Not saying we'll get that, but the point is how sporadic that spring was. It was awful screwy lol. I notice they're calling for drought this summer as well. We had a very wet/cool summer last year, hardly topping 80 other than a few exceptions, such as late July, early June, and late Sept., mainly because all it did was RAIN!! I wouldn't mind a break from that so that Septoria Leaf Spot goes down, but I won't wish for what I don't want. Drought could cause quite a few other issues. I worked on my "greenhouse" a bit. It hit 40 today, and the temperature inside the cover while being vented ever so slightly was about 70-75 F. Once the sun got off it this past evening it maintained 55-60 F. Not bad! I'll definitely wait until mid March to sow warm weather crops like tomatoes and peppers, once the daylight hours reach 12 hours, much more ideal for those, rather than our current just above 10. I have started Rouge Grenobloise lettuce, Rocky Top mix lettuce, Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach, peas for salad leaves, mustard greens, collards, and kale for hopefully putting out in early March under cover. I'd love to be picking when most people are planting greens in late March/early April around here. I love the Rouge Grenobloise lettuce, because, not only is it cold tolerant and delicious, but being a Batavian, I can start to harvest lower leaves 4 weeks after it's put out, continuously picking throughout the spring. It's much better than, say, 1 pick from iceberg. Norm, I bet gardening in zone 10 can be nice. I like the break that winter brings for planning, seed ordering, etc., but being able to grow all at this time of year outdoors would certainly have its perks. Of course, the really long summers would probably be a pain, considering how many cool weather crops we eat. Good luck on your garden this year. Mulch would probably be a good idea. Keeping that soil cool would be another benefit of the mulch, which would probably help you grow more cool weather crops if the summer comes on too quickly.