CAM!!! So glad to hear you are staying in the area after all and joining back in the gardening fun

Thank you, Terri... me too !!

WooHoo!

CAM ...

I am not from the Mid Atlantic, but they let me play here ...

Lyn, you are more than welcome here. Our MAF was setup by Catmint to help center our friends from DG. Just jumping into ATP can be intimidating to those that are somewhat challenged with computers. That way we can help them assimilate.
and no we are not the Borg.

RoseBlush1 said: CAM ...

I am not from the Mid Atlantic, but they let me play here ...

Lyn you have been playing with us for so long I never even looked where you were from. What does it matter as long as we enjoy each other. Have a great day and I for one am glad you are here.

Yes, She has been a wonderful part off the MidAt for a long time. Sometimes I forget and you post a pic and I think "Oh that's right she is out there in Calif"

Thanks Ric and JB ...

I kind of have considered this group my "home" group even though I live clear across the country in northern California. If you look at the membership map, you will see that no one on ATP lives near me ...

The thing I have found special about all of you is that you put up with my novice questions with such grace. I may know a lot about roses, but I really still don't know much about gardening. Gardening literature doesn't even begin to address the issues I have faced with this garden. In fact, if I believed what I have found in gardening books, I would have quit before I started ...

Other than the roses, I think anything else I have managed to keep alive lives simply because Mother Nature doesn't want me to quit ...

Watching how you approach gardening in your climate and your helpful suggestions has made all of the difference, so I am very, very grateful you let me play here.

Thank you, Holly ... I don't live in the part of California that most people think about when they think about California gardening. It's totally different up here.

What makes it quite difficult is that I started with a lot of ignorance and dead soil. I have so much to learn.

ATTENTION: BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

FIRST ROBIN IN MY YEAR FEBRUARY 19, 2016. I MADE IT THROUGH THE WINTER AND NOW I KNOW SPRING IS SOON HERE. THANK YOU GOD.





There was a big flock but only one I could show you it was a robin for sure. I hope my regular pair is in this group. I am so excited.

Lyn, if you have the space, compost everything you can get your hands on, with the exception of treated lawn clippings. After about a year, amend, amend, amend. If you have enough you can use the lasagna method for making new beds and add to the old ones. A good source of compost is coffee grounds from a local shop or from a work coffee club. If you have enough of that kind of stuff you can add brown material to your compost, dead leaves and shredded paper.

Thank you, Ric. I have been adding organic material in the beds I created on the house pad level for years, now. I've used everything I could glean at least twice a year.

It took me a while to connect the dots, but the house pad garden is actually subsoil as the house pad was cut out of a slope. There was no plant organic material in that "soil". It was just very dense rock with clay and silt between the rocks. It wouldn't even grow weeds the first year after I had the decorative rock the previous owner of the house had used removed.

There was no way I could even begin to dig a hole with a shovel and I was too inexperienced to know that I should have created whole beds. I do have perfect drainage ...

I only mulched the beds I created and didn't mulch the areas outside of the beds. I used the no-till gardening method because by the time I hauled everything home, I didn't have the energy to try and dig stuff into rock.

With all of the stuff I have hauled back to the garden and put in the beds, the soil is now viable. The humic acid created by decomposing organic material has virtually made the rocks disappear and I can now dig in the beds easily.

While you guys were suffering through your blizzard, I was outside weeding and mulching because we generally get a winter thaw at the end of January. I saw lots and lots of worms and those white strings of fungi and insects working in the soil.

I am not sure what you mean by "amend". I think I would need a soil test to know what to add to the soil, but I am not sure.

You may need some lime to adjust the pH from all the decomp. pH meters aren't expensive and I use mine a good bit to check beds in the spring.

Thank you. I'll check into that.

that's great news, JB!

Just received an invitation to join the Midatlantic Gardening Forum. I joined ATP in March 2014 and check into it nearly everyday. A couple of days ago I entered my first post - on the Houseplant forum - and was amazed by the nearly immediate friendly help I received from two members.

I live in NW Penna - about 40 miles south of Erie; 90 miles north of Ptgh - in the Lake Erie snow belt. Gardening has been my #1 hobby since teen-age years (am now 85). Due to my physical limitations, nearly all my gardening is now focused on houseplants and patio container gardening - difficult to bend over and get up being on my hands and knees.

Born and raised in NW Penna, I lived in Charlotte, NC for nearly 20 years and loved the long, long growing season - raised several perennials as well as annuals and became acquainted with knock-out roses (which I highly recommend to rose lovers.) Not so fortunate here as gardening season usually starts with Memorial Day and ends with Labor Day....but that still gives a lot of time to enjoy the plants.

I especially enjoy starting plants from seeds although I no longer have the luxury of a grow light setup - must depend on my many sunny windows.

Looking forward to getting acquainted with all of you - regardless of where you live.

to you, Don. Looking forward to seeing more posts from you. Definitely can relate to regretting getting down on my knees, as there is then the challenge of getting up again.

Welcome Don, I live in south central Pa. about a 3 hr drive to Pittsburgh,

Don!

Welcome Don! I love that you are a life long gardener!!!