You can grow a lot of things that I can't down here in Mobile. When I first started trying to garden I was reading all the books and following their directions and nothing came up! It was depressing. I dearly wanted foxglove, aconitum, delphinium and soooooo many more of the plants that I saw in "regular" garden books. I tried and tried, and was just on the verge of giving up and working on my grass growing skills when our newspaper hired a man, who is very well versed in local gardening lore and brimming with both knowledge and new ideas, as a regular columnist. Now I have the garden of my dreams, but if I had gone on trying to grow a temperate zone garden I would have a lot of bare earth. I'll never be able to have that cottage garden so I'm happy with my personal jungle, lol. Hope this makes you feel better.

Hi Linda. I truly love lilacs and there have been numerous discussions on these forums about how lilacs won't grow in warmer climates. I'm also under the impression that lupines won't grow in warmer places. I've read many southern gardeners' comments on how they can't grow a really TASTY tomato. Many of our deciduous trees can't make it without a cold dormant period. I've never been west of TX, but I've been to the South many times. I don't ever recall seeing any corn or soybean fields down there. This is a great thread! Especially at this time of year when the cold is putting all our flowers to sleep already and we are getting zone envy!

Nigella, I'm so happy you have a 'jungle' instead of just boring grass!

MeMyself... my mom grows lilacs in Southern California, zone 9. She is in Yucaipa, which is at the base of the San Gorgonio (?) mountains, just west of Palm Springs. But she has a hard time with tomatoes LOL. And I LOVE Nigella's jungle!

Holly

Thank you, Holly! It is really a jungle out there at this season, too, because the gingers are all sooooo tall and floppy, lol, they drape all over the pathways but the scent is out of this world!

Oh Oh Oh Ginger!!!!! Haven't been around them since we left California. My mom grew white ones way out back and you could smell them all the way to the house! I hear they actually like heavy clay so I should try putting some in and just digging them at the end of the season! Thanks for reminding me of them!

bbb, I wonder why I saw so many posts this spring about the lack of lilacs in the South? Am I thinking of something else - something springy? Anyhoo - I forgot to say WHY I love lilacs. When I was very small, our property was separated from one of the neighbors by a hedge of lilacs. I remember everyone getting all excited when they bloomed, and being allowed to pick as many as I wanted.

I wonder if the lack of Lilacs in the south is just in the humid south and not the dry south?

WOW I really had no idea! But I am glad to hear from everyone. It's not that I was was feeling bad I was realizing that sometimes we take our plants for granted. But I do wish that we could grow, I think they are called night flowers. I would love to smell the fragrance that everyone raves about. If it is anything like Avon night flowers showering gel. I really am envious. Anyway I am sure that there are others and I would still like to hear from people.
Linda

I'm on the border between zone 5 and 6 and it's amazing what you can grow that needs cold. A lot of mountain and woodland plants require a cold spell and several perennials I grow actually require a cold treatment before the seeds will germinate.

I do get jealous of our friends farther south during the dark, cold days of winter, but I sure look forward to the first crocus to stick it's head out for a lot of bulbs also require cold. I think I've read that bulbs are an evolutionary adaptation for a plant to store energy during unfavorable periods like winter, and so it isn't surprising that plants like tulips and crocuses require winter's cold in order to bloom.

I love the fact that our weather changes with the seasons. I love that one month it can be 85 and the next month 25. I love seeing the changes in the foliage and gardens from season to season. I would like to go a little further south, but never so far that I couldn't see snow in the winter.

Hi there I'm Zone 5 too way down here in NZ too and the one thing I have discovered is a lot of things will grow if they know you love them!! Perhaps this sounds a bit airy fairy but I have had a lot of success growing things I love that are not supposed to grow where I am... Philippa

When my dad and stepmother moved from here, OH, to Fl thay discovered that a lot of the flowers they were used to wouldn't grow in z9. My sons, the family plant experts, were visiting them a couple of years ago and heard Grandma bemoaning the fact that she couldn't grow monarda (bee balm) in FL. As the guys were walking around the neighborhood (kind of out in the boonies with lots of "wildflowers" growing by the roadside) they spotted some monarda in a ditch down the road. Grandma was thrilled to find a monarda cultivar that DOES grow and thrive in z9. She transplanted it to her garden and it grows very well. She still misses her pansies, although she could probably grow them in the winter. In WC FL it does get cold enough for frost in Jan and Feb.
The other thing they noticed is that FL tomatoes are not nearly as tasty as OH ones.

This is a great post! I'm not used to feeling great about gardening in zone 5, but now I know we have advantages! :-) I too love lilacs, crabapple blossoms, tomatoes, pea pods, violets violet violets, and my lavender monarda!! :-)

Can't believe nobody has mentioned hostas yet. Or the beautiful native viburnums.

I also love NOT having the critters of warmer climates. Scorpions, palmettos, rattle snakes, alligators, (insert scream.)

Also wanted to add that I love winter! The more snow there is, the happier I get. The silence of it is stunning. I know it causes a lot of damage, but few acts of nature are as beautiful as an ice storm (preferably right after a grocery shopping expedition.)

Sometimes it's hotter, but 85 is the average high around here in summer. So I have to say I love summer, too! I was in San Antonio in July once. Ugh!

About those lilacs, Syringa vulgaris is hardy from zones 3-7. I don't know what kind of lilacs are grown in warmer climates, but they're not the 'common, old-fashioned' lilacs. (I'm starting to loathe common names more every day.)

Hi, I just had to butt into this thread and defend the astonishing variety of plants that can be grown in Southern California's zone 9. We can and do successfully grow lilacs here, as well as fruits of all varieties requiring winter chill. I grow six foot tall delphiumiums, foxgloves, and towering hollyhocks. In fact, I can think of no popular perennials that cannot be successfully grown here. These grow handsomely amidst the bananas, palms, philodendrons and other tropicals we can also grow here. There are thousands of acres in California that are planted to perennials for the booming cut-flower trade, and they are a breathtaking sight to drive through. It is in Florida and the deep south that many popular perennial cannot be grown, and it is chiefly because the nights are too hot. In California, our nights drop into the 60's all summer, with rare exceptions, and plants love this. Also, the majority of annuals are winter blooming here because our winter climate is much like an English summer. We have warm sunny days, and cool, dewy nights. We start "biennials" in fall, and they are in bloom six months later. Our perennials tend to bloom earlier here, with peak bloom beginning in late April. Believe me, Monet himself couldn't paint a lovlier perennial garden than you can find here in California. Sorry if I sound like a Subtropical loyalist, but that is exactly what I am:-)

All you have to do is read the posts in the Cottage Gardens forum written by envious Floridians.

Okay fishcookie: I've had zone 9 envy more than once; I would love to be able to walk outside and pick an avocado off my own tree. But I can settle for a crabapple, because there are also a lot of wonderful things about living in zone 5. Winter wonderland is one of them. Peonies are another. Definitely my favourite cold climate perennial.

You can import tropical plants to the north, and most of them will grow just fine. We can have greenhouses, coldframes, and lights in the basement to keep the plants over winter. But you can't have winter in the tropics. Imported snowballs just aren't an option. It doesn't work both ways.

Those lilacs in southern CA are Ceanothus, not Syringa. It only took 8 years...

(Start humming Judy Collins "Both Sides Now...") In any case, I've lived in southern AL for 4 years now. It's interesting to read what I said 8 years ago (Memyselfandi). Although it's too hot to go outside for about 6 weeks, I do love it here and prefer it as a gardener. I don't think the novelty of roses that bloom for 9 months, cannas that don't need to be dug-up, having a real-live gardenia bush in my yard, pecans, lantana, palms, oleander will ever wear off. And often, while folks 'back home' are being snowed on, my windows are open and roses are blooming. As long as they don't send me pictures of a ski trip, I'm totally good with it. Had I not made the move south, I would still be perfectly happy in Ohio, though. Eh, oh, way-to-go Ohio.

I don't like grass but I've actually had moments when I miss "nice" grass. Except at the beach, I haven't walked around barefoot since I moved down here. The wiregrass is just unpleasant to step on, and sometimes it's hard to be at peace with this. However, since it grows out instead of up, I mow a lot less often.

It's 79 here right now, weather.com says it's 44 'back home.'