I think I would choose right exactly where I am, thanks. (Zone 6b, Pennsylvania) I need the changing seasons, even if summer is a bit too hot for some flowers I envy in UK gardens, and winter is long and makes me impatient.

I agree with floral.......the PNW is by far one of the most desirable gardening climates. A wider variety of plants wil grow here than just about anywhere else. I would never consider moving somewhere else just to garden.

btw, a great many of Lars' CA plants will grow here as well :-) I should imagine a similar selection would do equally as well in Vancouver B.C. And fragrance in the garden is not at all hard to come by......you may not be growing the right things!

Like Jenn, on the whole I'm happy to garden where we are now (southern Ontario, Canada). While I can complain at times about winter being too long and too cold and summer being too short and too hot, on the whole this location suits me fine. There are plants I'd like to have but they wouldn't grow here either due to winters being too cold or because they need acid soil instead of our neutral-to-alkaline clay soil. There is never going to be a location to garden that doesn't have something to complain about :-) but I like the overall conditions here.

Me, too -- I'm in the happy where I am camp :0)

Me, too. I like sunshine as much as sunshine gardening.

Outside the longer growing season, living in Vancouver, especially the North Shore, can be depressingly overcast through winter.

"There is never going to be a location to garden that doesn't have something to complain about :-)"

I have nothing to complain about here :-) No tornadoes or hurricanes, rarely even a thunderstorm. No bizarre insect issues (no cicadas, no grasshoppers, rarely ever a Japanese beetle sighting), seldom an abrupt cold snap and very little snow (usually). Mild winters, mild summers (minimal humidity), mild weather overall but with defined seasons. It doesn't even rain all that much compared to many other locations. It can be gray and overcast in winter....but not always. And when the sun shines here, it is so breathtakingly scenic it is hard to beat!!

Can you tell I like where I live??

I’d like these conditions: normal rainfall, nice soil, mild temps, no Fire Ants. :) I’m in the Southwest USA .... dry, blistering sun, extremely hot (103 today), gross soil, and just very, very, very challenging conditions. I’ve visited the PNW, the NE, the Midwest — I’d like to combine conditions of those.

Stayed often on relatives’ farm in the Midwest — I swear she could just throw a plant at that beautiful black soil and it’d thrive. :)

I’m pretty proud, though, that I can create beauty in such harsh conditions. But as I age, it’s so much more tiring!

I love where I live on the coast of Maine. Now, we can only compare our current place to things we have experienced in our past. Growing up in Alabama meant dense red clay soil, constant humidity and temps above 90, hot temps as late as November and as early as April, boring winters...

Basically, we lived in a kiln. No small wonder there was and is a brick industry in the southeast.

Now I have amazingly mild summers with cooling winds off the waters. Rarely do I have powdery mildew, it's almost never too hot to weed, the plants don't get scorched, etc. And, best of all, I get a winter! That means I have over half the year to NOT garden. During those months I take a break, then plan, then get impatiently excited for the first buds of spring. It is SUCH an amazing difference from where I grew up.

I have learned how to adapt to where I live. It’s probably fine, where’re I live in a less than perfect place,but the PNW would be stressful in another way.

deanna..I enjoyed reading your comment..I daydream about moving to a warmer climate..but you left a warmer climate and don't seem to miss it..are there any plants that you miss?..there's a few that I would grow if I lived in the South..I don't think there's such a thing as the perfect place..anyone remember A Gardener's Diary?..it showed gardens all over the country..my favorite gardens seemed to be in the Southeast..I do love my own garden in the summer..but winter's too long in Indianapolis..

GG I know where you live! lol I gardened for many years in Northern CA, Mediterranean Climate. Wet winters and very hot and dry summers. I collected and grew salvias, cistus, cannas and abutilons along with many other plants. We learned to garden through droughts using waste water to keep the garden alive. It was an adventure to return to the PNW and I brought more than 125 pots filled with my most precious plants. Most turned out not to be hardy in my present garden but some survived and are growing happily. But I was able to grow many species that more than compensated for the losses. The first to be planted were ferns, hostas, hellebores and all the wonderful spring ephemerals found in our Marine Climate. I traded eucalyptus and stone pine trees for Douglas firs, cedars and alders. But best of all, I have become passionate about my hydrangea collection. My only hydrangea in the CA garden grew in the creek in my back yard with constantly moving water and shaded by a huge redwood tree! lol Now I have more than 50 different cultivars and love every one of them. Everything from macs., serratas, arborescens, asperas and paniculatas. I am a happy gardener! I propagate more than one hundred each year for our garden club sale. One interesting thing about the PNW is that we have found the gardeners to be far more open, welcoming and generous than most of the folks we left in CA.

What do I miss?? The 30 year old pomegranate bush that grew right next to the compost bin in full sun and yielded armloads of huge sweet fruits so big they literally burst their skins. But it is worth the loss.

I would be back in Pennsylvania outside Philadelphia. We had the best soil there, lovely, rich, dark soil and my mother had the most wonderful gardens. Everything grew happy and healthy. Here, we have arell clay. It is so frustrating. My garden is okay here, but it is so hard to dig when it is dry and when it is wet, well, I am thinking I should buy a kiln and take up pottery. Lousy drainage. Some areas have been amended, but half an acre sure does seem like a lot when I need to amend every square inch.

Thanks for all the comments. I will try fragrant flowers again.

Have had limited success though some years absolutely no fragrance from supposedly fragrant flowers.

I have to choose more and more xeric scape flowers anyway since undeniable climate change has overtaken everything. I used to plant a garden and really never water it. We get lots of rain but with more heat the rain doesn't have the impact that it used to. We haven't changed our zone though. We're zone 8 but get not enough snow cover and cold enough snaps for tender perennials.

While I appreciate where I live I really am trying to interesting in exotic looking plants which don't quite fit here in Vancouver.

I don't want to live where Lars lives in California because I do love Vancouver and the area but I would love to have a very exotic and almost Hawaiian but a bit more xeriscape Garden :-). I'd love to go Garden there and then come home :-). I really need a Star Trek transporter.

Exact ditto to what Jinx said. :)

yeonassky, I don't live all that further south from you - the Puget Sound basin - so our climates are pretty similar. Except we get even less annual rainfall than you do. Also a bit milder in winter but with even less snow cover. And it is very possible to have a very lush, exotic, jungley looking garden here without continual watering. It is more a matter of good soil prep and plant selection than anything else.

It might be worth your while to hire a garden designer for at least a consultation (if not to develop a design plan) to help you develop that exotic looking garden you desire. It is very possible.......probably more so here in the PNW than anywhere else that is not actually semitropical :-) Hardy bananas, gingers, ferns, Japanese aralias, tetrapanax will all grow here well, as will more temperate yet equally exotic looking choices like rodgersia, gunnera, spikenards, hydrangeas, bamboos, etc. The choices are almost endless.

Somewhere without late frosts...early frosts....drought ...and hail!

Add Loquat to GGs list. Very jungly looking foliage. For scent regal lilies never disappoint, even in the rain.

I’m with plantlady. But add non-draining clay to the list. I love living in Colorado, but gardening is tough! I also miss growing exotic succulents like was possible in AZ. Don’t miss anything else about that heat though!