Signs of spring -- a welcome sight!

And welcome to you, glad you decided to join!

Welcome to the community! :)

Lovely to see new plant emerging from their winter rest. I hope you have a wonderful spring 2024.

Welcome Romans!! :) :) You sound like you'll fit in very nicely here. We're all plant nuts and rose nuts here. Those are lovely pictures! I love the color of the plant in the first pic...what is it?

So happy you joined in, welcome! Like you this is the only social media I do and it is a great community.

Thanks, Flora :)

Rosecanadian, floraluk2 hit it right on the head! The astible emerges with such a pretty shade of red in the spring!

thanks for the welcomes everyone! I love it so far. There’s much to learn and discover here. It’s wonderful!

:) :) :)

Welcome, Romans! Your spring shoots are beautiful. I’ve always admired astilbe, but never had success growing it. I live in the Southwest, so not a great place to grow it, I suppose.

Thank you, Judijune!

I can resonate! Having spent most of my life in the tropics and then moving to the desert, I’m finally getting to enjoy some more variety in my new transition zone. The only kicker is spending most of my time working on soil amendments 🤣

Zone 11 wet & humid to zone 9b blazing hot and dry
….
I’ll take zone 8b any day

Romans, congrats on buying your first home! I remember the excitement I had when I moved into a home where the yard was a blank slate. This web site has a lot of knowledgeable people who I’ve learned a lot from. There’s a lot of common sense advice from people who have real gardens! .....I wish I would have followed some of that advice years ago, but we have to learn from our own experiments, too.

I moved from zone 9 to zone 5 (probably z6 now) and it was a lot of fun finding out what new plants I could have here. I hope you’ll stick around, and photos are always welcome!

Thank you for your kindness, sandyslopes!

I totally understand what you are referring to with learning from our own experiments— I wish I would have discovered this site when I first got started. Thankfully my mistakes have been gracious toward me and I can move forward with the lessons I have learned 😊

It’s especially fun having a large blank space to work with! The home we purchased had sadly been foreclosed, the previous owners were the first to live in it and had been there 25 years before letting banks take over. However from my gardening journey I see that they too enjoyed the garden. I’ve found hidden tomato plants, blueberry bushes, wild strawberries, and more. The first task was learning the lay of the land/sun/soil…. And of course pests.

My next big project is hopefully installing irrigation whether that be drip lines or soakers…. I suppose I will find opinions here!

It’s so exciting to have a new variety of plants to work with!

Thank you again ☺️

So nice to hear the excitement in your voice! I also wish I had found these forums sooner, but I learned much on my own as well. Since you have at least one hosta, you may have more. There is also a hosta forum. If you have shade, hostas may be something you would like to add to your garden. BUT, I warn you, acquiring hostas is addictive and we hosta people are the best enablers! Welcome!

debra

Welcome! You have started with some awesome plants that will give you a solid basis for your garden. On the rose forum, we will happily enable you to plant some high impact plants that will be a showplace in addition to the other perennials. I have perennials mixed in everywhere with my roses, and it's a blessing when the roses take a break in August and the other plants like daylilies and phlox and scabiosa are still blooming.

Do ask us about rose suggestions in a new thread as you get settled and have ideas of what you want. Contrary to popular assumptions, roses can be very easy to grow with just some basic care. You don't have to commit to spraying or fussing if you plant roses well suited for your climate.

Thanks for including your zone in your user name. For advice, it helps to add to your user name your region of the country. For instance, my Nebraska dry western zone 5 (now 6) is very different from the wet disease pressures in zone 5 east coast or Michigan.

We look forward to the happy challenge of getting you excited about roses in your garden!

Cynthia

Thank you Debra & Cynthia! I appreciate the warm advice and insight.

I am located in zone 8b in wet/humid South Carolina! I am grateful to dabble in both shade and full sun gardening.

Debra, my hosta obsession was introduced after my grandmother divided and gifted some of her beloved collection to me. I recently added about 6 new varieties- I found the hosta forums and it’s thrilling to see all of the beautiful varieties and their fun names.

Cynthia, I grew up in zone 9b in hot/dry southern CA and roses + lavender were all my mom would plant. I was surrounded by roses as a child and recently planted my first 2, climbers. My Don Juan is on its 4th season and is an absolute stunner with next to no fuss despite originally arriving with black spot… and my florentina is brand new and just getting established. I’ll admit, roses are slightly overwhelming to me but I am excited to learn along the way. I agree about the perennials, they truly make gardening exciting at all different times of the year. Right now my candytufts are the show stoppers. Salvias just started blooming and I left my snapdragons in the ground last year and they decided to return as well. Very exciting!

I am a hydrangea fanatic. I believe that is my main obsession as I have collected around 8 different varieties so far and I love them despite their dramatics. Panicles are just the best no fuss, show stoppers. I cannot wait to share photos of all of my garden rooms this upcoming season.