Hey There! Welcome to the Mid-Atlantic!

Don't throw away your Victory Garden books - I use mine even though I'm down here in Virginia now (I'm a NY transplant). The gardening principles are still sound - you just have to adjust the timing to the different frost dates, & adjust your planting/harvesting of heat-sensitive veggies like lettuce, etc.

Hi Weddingdance

Come on in and be welcome to gardening in the middle where the summers are too hot and too humid for cool season plants and the winters are too cold and too dry for neotropicals. But of course none of our seasons, no matter how bad they might be, ever last that long. The saying around here is "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute."

The good news, we can grow a lot of diffferent stuff here in the mid-Atlantic and its fun to push the envelope by setting up micro-climates. Wait until you get your first local taste of Maryland sweet corn just a few minutes off the stalk (find your local farmers market).

Seriously, one of the big local things is making sure you allow for enough air circulation in the summer to keep all of the mildews and wilts down.

You will probably be barely unpacked by May 14, but why not try to make the Spring Swap in Burtonsville (see the message string at the top of the forum for details). Meet like minded people and pick up some plants suited to your new Mid-Atlantic Garden.

What Kim is REALLY trying to say is that we can grow everything here. South of here, you won't have much success with rhubarb or lilacs. North of here, you won't have much success with figs or okra. But here, you can have it all :-).

Welcome,
You'll love it here. The climate and gardening opportunities are only a fraction of the love you will have for the MD area. You'll enjoy the driving. Drivers here, while still wild compared to alot of places, are actually calmer than the ones in the Boston to Providence area. If you love your clam cakes don't forget to have one last bite before you leave because I haven't found a place in the whole state that makes them.
Oh well I guess I'm rambling.
So what area are you moving to? The gardening is very different throughout the state.
Lettssee

Hi Weddingdance,
Looking forward to having you in the area - it really is a good place to garden, overall. I moved from zone 5 (upstate NY - Lake Ontario) to Northern VA by way of a couple of locations where I didn't have a garden, so it took me a while to figure out how to have what I wanted here (as well as get acquainted with the things I'd never tried before).
Kim is dead right with the micro-climate bit - that's key for this area. The only two things I grew up with that I haven't seen much of anyone succeed with in this area are lupines and the tall delphiniums.
Re books - the link below will take you to a discussion of books, display gardens etc, as responses to another impending 'transplant' to the area. The books cover the entire area. The gardens are mostly VA, but there's a list including Maryland somewhere on this site, possibly even in the Exchange section. (It came up as plant sales and their dates, to be avoided when planning the swap.)

Robin

Here is a link that might be useful: book recommendations for local gardening

I moved here (north of where you are) specifically because the gardening season is much longer. Just don't bother trying to grow delphiniums or lupines or meconopsis well. They will grow, but not to the full glory they acheivein colder climates. Plus the heat here means that blooms on most plants don't last as long. But overall this is a better place if you're intense about gardening. I don't think the red lily beetle has moved here yet either. Please don't pack any.

Thanks for the warm welcome! We closed on our house in Jefferson, MD last Friday, and move April 4-7.

Mildew and wilts, yahoo!!! I've been growing lettuce all year long in my backyard, it's so wicked cold here! I'll remember about the air circulation thing, thanks for the tip.

Our movers will unload us on April 7, and the first thing unpacked after the computer will be my spade. I'm going to have to turn the ground over this year, but next year we can build raised beds, like I usually have.

I saw a thread about a Chantilly, VA plant swap, I think that's less than an hour from me in Jefferson, MD, so I'll be there with Cookies on. I also saw one about Burtonsville on May 15, so I'll check the map. It sounds fun!

I've led such a 'sheltered' life though, I thought lilacs grew everywhere. I was thinking about planting some forsythia and lilacs at my new house, but maybe I should think again?

Where is Jefferson?

Nyce Farm, Jefferson is in Frederick County, not s'far from the City of Frederick. My parents used to go up there for church suppers all the time.

Oh just wait until you go through forsythia season in this area. It BOOO-TI-FUL for the couple of weeks it lasts. They are well worth planting here.

Then you get to azalea season. And one pilgrimage you'll need to work in is to make a trip to the Tidal Basin down by the Jefferson Memorial for cherry blossom peak, expected in a week or two.

With the exception of the few things that like cooler climates (think I listed some above), everything you grow in NE will grow here even better!!! Lilacs and forsythia and azaleas are prolific here. You are not in the deep south :) this is the mid atlantic, so you get more heat but still have winters - just not a lot of snow most years. And the bonus is a real spring.... Yes, where is Jefferson!

Hi Weddingdance,

We'll almost be neighbors. I live in Knoxville, right on the Virginia, Maryland line across the river from Harper's Ferry. Jefferson is only 10 min from me. It's a sweet little town with a bakery and a great meat store. I can tell you where some good nurseries are. I can even give you a forsythia plant. See the link below for an awesome nursery that's in Middletown. I know you'll love it.

I spent 18 yrs in Boston before moving here 16 yrs ago. Actually I lived in Cambridge and Medford. I love Boston so much.

I see from your member page that you like vegetable gardening. Me too!! If you need some horse manure, just give me a holler. My neighbor has 3 horses and there's more than enough manure.

Drop me an email if you like.

Here is a link that might be useful: My favorite nursery

Weddingdance,

Welcome to Jefferson. We moved here about 19 years ago when we built our house (3 acres of ground); however, my youth was spent growing up in Knoxville. We have been naturalizing our lower two acres back into woodland (long, slow process), but less upkeep and supports a lot of nature. Our upper acre has been landscaped to take native wildlife into consideration, but evolves as plants mature.

I agree with Peggy about Surrybrooke Farm. I am amazed with what Nancy has done with this property, especially since it is her family's home too. Nancy did some flowerbed layout for me off of my patio not too long after we moved in. I see by your dates, you are just now moving in. Once you are settled in, please feel free to e-mail me through this site if you would like to hook up. It is always good to meet a fellow gardener. By the way, I hope you were "warned" about the bunny problem in Jefferson, they are cute, but not when they destroy all you have planted. Lately I have been mostly visiting "That Home Site" in the Gardenweb since we are in the process of upgrading/renovating our kitchen.

I'm happily moved in, yet not completely unpacked. I've planted a climbing rose near my front porch (I have NEVER seen anything like this red clay except in art class).

I tried to plant some clematis to cover my back deck, but the plants I got at Home Depot where kind of, well, dead and missing. The package of three only had one that looked alive, one that was a stick, and the third was missing.

I started some seeds in an outdoor portable greenhouse, and planted some peas, scallions, and carrots in a raised bed.

Yes, I've seen the bunnies. They are very cute. I'll put some chicken wire around my raised bed. I've got an area about 15' x 15' that the previous owners gardened, but it's shaded in the afternoon, so I'm wondering, did they do that on purpose because it gets too hot here? Or, as my husband suspects, do they not know what they're doing? They planted a tree about an inch away from the brick foundation, so we'll have to pull that out carefully, leading to his suspicion.

I hope to visit Surrybrooke this weekend or next. Thanks everyone!

Lee Ann

Lee Ann,

You'll be wicked jealous of my dark loamy soil. And it came with the house too! I don't know how I got so lucky on that one but I know I deserve it;-)

As long as that shaded area you have gets 6 hrs of direct sun you can grow anything there. I always try to grow my lettuce where I can shade it when it gets hot.

Welcome to the hood.

Hi, Lee Ann. I'll join the "welcome" chorus. I'm more than an hour Southeast of you, but my brother lives near you, in Middletown. Beautiful country. Enjoy!

Hi!
Welcome. :)

Ask your husband not to be so quick to decide the previous owners didn't know what they were doing. If that tree was "planted" next to the foundation, nature probably did it. If the foundation ain't broke, consider discovering what kind of tree it is, what its root system is, and whether or not you can actually leave it.

I grew up in Michigan, where developers in N. MI would carefully pull trees aside to build in between them. They'd end up pretty close to foundations, and ironically, many, many of them actually survived. But the shade was something new developments don't normally have. My point? Examine it before he gets a bug in his year.

If the veggie bed has afternoon shade? Take a look at the microclimate. I'm 35 miles east of DC. Everything here is 1 week behind everything that's 10 minutes away from me. DC is 10 days ahead of me. I have summer sun like I'm living under a magnifying glass. If they went to the trouble to construct a garden like that, they probably knew what they were doing....

So see you at the swap! Are you bringing brownies plants or food?

Christine

Hi Weddingdance, I'm Jane, over in Middletown, not far from Jefferson. Welcome to MD. I am also originally from New England and I am very happy with the climate here. Did you end up going to the plant swap in Burtonsville? My friend Brian brought me. It was my first. I brought white irises and a few other items. I am excited about getting a new luffa seedling and a apricot agastache...Nice bunch of people. I just signed up on the gardenweb last night. I live with my husband and two cats in an old house in Middletown which is full of many perennials that I can swap or just share some things. e-mail me if you are interested.

Here is a link that might be useful: Jane's Garden