Welcome!! You are in for lots of treats, because unlike California, things will start popping out of the ground in Spring that have already gone into their Autumn cycle of entering dormancy. In other words: You ain't seen what you got, yet :-)))

As far as books: Your best bet is to go to Borders and check out their local gardening section. New England is fickle in that there are so many geographical differences just a few miles apart. Get used to microclimate gardening. Better yet, I'm sure Peabody has a garden club with folks ready to talk for hours about what works.

One thing for sure: you will deal with rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. And lots and lots of freeze/thaw.

Don't worry about your straggly roses -- it's the end of the season for them, here.

Martie

Hi Sharon.. :-)

You picked a good place to come to since you are new to the area. This is a very friendly and helpful place. Lots of people here live around your area. I am about 20-30 minutes away from you. I feel bad for you to have come here this year, as this has been the DRIEST summer I can remember. I haven't had rain, more than twice since the middle of June until last week's rain from Ophelia. It is usually a lot different. We are all hoping for more rains this fall, which we usually can expect.

I am sure you will miss the unlimited growing season of California, but, to me, I find there is a rythymn here that I appreciate. The seasons change and there is always something to look forward to about every season. Spring is more special after waiting for it and very exciting. Lots of spring swaps if you like them. You can't wait to get outdoors again. Summer is intense and a chance to see how your plans are turning out when you see your plants reach their peak. Trips to the ocean beaches that are everywhere very close by.

The fall is planting bulbs and gathering leaves and getting your garden ready for next year. A great chance to amend and redo beds and transplant and divide. There is a crispness to the air and usually wonderful foliage. You can go apple picking to many orchards in Massachusetts and other states and make apple pies. If you have kids, they love doing it and they have hayrides for the kids. It makes a fun weekend. Then there are a lot of fairs in the fall.

Winter is actually something I look forward to. All the mistakes and disappointments of the past year are forgotten sometimes happily under a blanket of snow. The seeds are all collected. No more weeds to pull and you can stay warm near a fire if you have one and snuggle up with hot cocoa and a ton of catalogs and plan what you want to grow next year. IF we get snow...you may find you could start to enjoy snow sports, which a lot of people in New England do. Even if we don't have any, you can drive to snow in a very short time from where you are.

If you are really feeling withdrawal symptoms from gardening..[g]..there is a winter sowing forum that is just buzzing and people are planting from January on.

By the way, there is a Plant/Seed swap planned for October 1st in Lexington. That is about 30 minutes maybe less from where you are. I went to my first swap last spring and enjoyed it so much I am going to this one too. I met a lot of nice gardeners that live around here, came home with a ton of plants and just had a great time. We can still put plants into the ground for next year, right through October. You can read more about it on the thread in this forum. I think the title is Lexington Plant Swap 2005. Lots of people don't have much to bring to swap, and lots of people have tons of things they want to give away, so check it out.

So welcome to New England. I know it is not like home, but I hope you will find things...

Oh, I gave you the wrong title. The thread about the swap is called Eastern Mass Fall Swap 2005.

I forgot to mention books. There is a local network of libraries so if you want books, you can access them online and reserve books from many different libraries in the area and they are delivered to your local library for pick up.

Month by Month gardening New England by Jacqueline Heriteau

The same author has New England gardener's guide

New England Wildflower Society has a few books out and their center is about an hour away from you. Garden in the Woods is what it is called. A great place to visit in the spring also. They have an extensive nursery of native plants.

The Victory Garden is a book that the popular PBS show was in conjunction with and the information is great for vegetable gardening in New England. Their garden is in Mass too.

Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman is a well known book by a Maine expert on organic gardening in New England. He stretches the limits of the climate and is very inventive with vegetable gardening. His wife, Barbara Damrosch does books on flower gardening. Both are considered the cream of the crop as gardeners.

That should start you off with some ideas....hope that helps..
:-)
Adam

Welcome to beautiful New England! I have lived in California and have family there now. Gardening is different here. You may have to say good-bye to some of your California favorites but there are many beauties here that don't grow there.

For reading, I'd go to your public library and get as many back issues of People, Places, Plants as you can. It is a magazine published in Maine for gardeners in New England and New York. There will be lots of very current information about plants, gardening, nurseries, gardens to visit, garden events and so on. And get a subscription for yourself right away. They have a website.

I would not get the Sunset guide to gardening here. They are West Coast based, as you know, and that is their expertise. They are not a great source for New England. Again, take a look at the library for garden books for the Northeastern US. For a long time, in fact, most garden books were focused on the Northeast, much to everyone else's chagrin. You shouldn't have trouble finding titles.

You've come at a good time of year. New England is getting ready for our world famous foliage display, and gardens are shutting down, allowing time for rest and reading and planning for next year.

Wow, welcome and my advise is to the do winterizing of home and yard first. December through March will be the official "reading season" (and um, "dreaming season")
Of course, you can plant bulbs now through October, if you know where you'd like them - and have a bit of information about where they already may be planted in the landscape.
:-)

Best of luck!
Maryanne in Western Massachusetts

Better get a hat, gloves and boots too, besides the coat. Forget that you don't look good in a hat - nobody looks good in a hat (well, almost nobody)

Definitely go the swap Adam's talking about, if you can. These people had so much fun at the spring swap that they're still talking about it.

Be very careful about planting things now since, as Martie mentioned, you don't know what's underground already.

Request local catalogs. White Flower Farm in Connecticut and Johnny's Selected Seeds in Maine are good local ones to start with. Just remeber your new zone! You can cheat a little on the edge of the zone, but forget about Zone 8.

As already mentioned, People Places and Plants Magazine is a fine resource.

New England is a good place - I hope you'll be happy here.

Claire

Here is a link that might be useful: People, Places and Plants Magazine

Welcome to New England (butt of all those jokes about changeable weather!). I have seen a Sunset guide written specifically for the Northeast, but as Ginny said I would hesitate to rely solely on their advice. While browsing in the bookstore, however, I did leaf through it and was intrigued by how many mini-zones they managed to divide us up into!

There are also a lot of local variations in soil and subsoil type in New England. For example, my corner of Middlesex County is apparently a pocket of sandy soil, so some plants thrive here that wouldn't do well in heavier soil. Carol Stocker, the Boston Globe's gardening writer, is always referring to "our heavy clay soil." And as a rule, the soil here tends to be much more acidic than in the West.

Definitely, wait and see what comes up in your yard next spring and summer, before making any major changes. Some of the local weeds may not be familiar to you, so be cautious about pulling things up:-).

Wow. You guys are great! Good advice all around and thank you for all the book recommendations. Because we homeschool, getting a library card was already on my list of things to do this week.

I'm not sure if I can make the Oct 1 swap date. We are still trying to get into the house, get rooms painted, get cars inspected, etc. I read the beginning and the end of that long thread, but not the middle, so I'm unclear if there is a definite need to know that someone is coming or if drop-ins are ok.

I'm really not planning to do anything "different" to the yard this fall -- I do want to try and identify things and I think the books will help me with that -- however, should I do something to the roses before winter? I've never been much of a rose person and my previous experience with roses has been to prune them in January (when it was coldest in my neck of the woods) and that was it. I'm not even sure that I want to keep the roses long term, but I still want to take care of them while they are here.

Sharon

Hi Sharon,

Isn't that a LONG thread??! I am thinking before we are done we will hit the 200 mark on how many posts were made..lol.

It has been a long time since I moved, but I used to do it alot and I remember how much WORK it is. Completely understand if Oct 1st won't fit for you, but if you find you can at the last minute, it is no problem at all. You don't have to let anyone know you are coming. If you want to go at the last minute and want some directions just email me at AdamM321@comcast.net and I will send them along to you.

As for the rose question, I am not the best person to ask, but for me, I am just watering mine well from now until frost and I will be pruning them when it is cold, probably late in February, early March. I have very few roses and they have to be easy, so I am no expert. I would get that question answered at the rose forum and you would probably get a more dependable answer. [g] I have to go there soon and ask about moving one of my roses.

Have a good week..
:-)

Welcome to New England! You can have a beautiful garden here, and now is the time to act.

For books, I would recommend: The New England Gardener book of lists. This book lists all of the plants which will grow here, and is very useful. You can probably fnd it at your local library, and through inter-library loan. It should help you quite a lot.

My other favourite book is: The Adventurous Gardener, which lists all nurseries of interest in the region.

For roses, don't prune now: you will lose more over the winter. I prune when the forsythia blooms, which means that the roses are ready for it. If you want to plant roses this fall (a bit later than now), plant them bareroot and cover them with dirt for their first winter. Pickering nurseries in Canada will be an ecellent source, hardy roses which will grow well for you. My favourite: New Dawn. Well, I have plenty of other favourites...

And now is also the time to plant bulbs. I have always had exceptional quality bulbs from Van Engelen, and I always recommend them. Order very soon, as they sell fast, and most people have ordered a long time ago, but you can plant them till the ground freezes. Where I am, I can pretty much plant till Thanksgiving, but you might have a little bit more time where you are.

Again, welcome, and best of luck! Ah... one point of detail... the winter is long. If you can take up cross country skiing, it won't matter so much!

Best

Belle Isis

Hi. I understand where you are. I grew up on the CA coast and moved to NH from FL.

So, things I can tell you:

1) Ask your neighbors if they mulch or protect any of their plants in winter and which ones. Then see if they'll show them to you. If you have the same plants, consider protecting them.

2) The advice about Forsythia above is good, but you need to know that Forsythia is a bright yellow blooming bush, one of the first plants to bloom in Spring.

3) No one has mentioned "mud season." I know we have it here in NH, unsure about MA. Mud season is inbetween when there's snow and the ground thaws completely. You get, you guessed it, mud.

4) If no one has talked to you about this, ask AAA, if you're a member about where to get your cars winterized: fluids and tires. You'll want to make sure your car is waxed to protect it from road salt.

5)Also find out where AAA (or your neighbors) recommend you get practice driving in nasty weather, icy streets, digging out of ruts, etc. Best if you can get someone who's already used to driving in the stuff to get you there....

6) If your house is heated with wood, make sure you have enough, 3-4 SEASONED cords for my house of 1700 square feet. A cord of wood is approximately 8' long x 4' x 4'. No that is NOT a typo, I really meant eight feet.

A lot of this stuff I got from our realtor. Some I got from the town, some from the library, and some by making mistakes. There's details that a native born New Englander won't think to tell you, so feel free to contact me if you want: ladybks@yahoo.com

JKD

Belle...great recommendations! I used the Adventurous Gardener also. Something I also use is the website Garden Watchdog for checking out the reputation of any nurseries I am planning on using.

I just made a bulb order from JShceepers and Brent and Becky's. Consumer Reports recommended them. First time trying them, will let you know how they are. I also wanted to mention, if you are late thinking about bulbs, there may be good sales for you to pick up some of the basics.

Judith... I know the "mud season" you refer to, but I don't get it here and I don't think Sharon will get it where she is either.

You are right, Judith, I wouldn't have thought to tell her about the car being winterized or the driving or the winter protection for your plants. Thanks for the reminder.. I need to remember to do some of that too...lol.

Adam

Welcome! A few thoughts to add:

If the previous owners were not big gardeners, then the rose bush you have is most likely a fairly hardy one that has made it through previous winters without special protection.

I hope the predictions for this winter are wrong. Transitioning to the average Mass. winter is an adjustment. The Old Farmer's Almanac and possibly other sources are saying we may be headed for one of the more challenging ones. It would be nice to start you out with one of the milder winters. Who knows? Anyway, if winter here discourages you, check in here for words of encouragement.

Hi Sharon,

Just wanted to add another welcome to New England. My mom lived in Peabody until last year, and I used to live in Peabody, but that was another lifetime ago. It's a nice town. Now I live a little further south and west of you.

You will get snow. My mom always used to get snow whenever we did, just a little less, because of your proximity to the coast. I grew up here, but I did buy the Northeast Gardening book by Sunset. I guess it's an ok book, I don't know why I bought it. A compulsion to buy books, I guess. :-)

There is nothing like actual experience, and I have gardened and lived here all my life, so I can't really say if the info in there will be useful to someone from Calif. But just wanted to let you know that there is a Sunset gardening book for the Northeast, and it's a big thick book.

Besides all the other stuff people have mentioned, I would recommend that you get a good book about New England wildflowers, if that interests you. (I have one, but unfortunately I can't put my hands on it right this second, so I can't tell you the title, but I'll keep looking for it) There are a lot of wildflowers and spring ephemerals that show up briefly in the spring along with the early bulbs that help make spring a joy after all the cold and snow. You don't want to pull one thinking it's a weed. Some ARE weeds, but others like bloodroot and jack-in-the-pulpit, are great to have.

If I were you I would wait to order bulbs and see what you may already have in the spring. All the foliage from daffs and tulips and crocuses has died back, so like others have said, you may not know what else you have.

Oh BTW, the fall foliage is a real treat. Just wait a few weeks. You don't have to go anywhere special to see it. Just drive or walk anywhere and you will see some gorgeous fall colors.

Keep coming here to GW too, it will keep you sane in the winter.

Alison

Welcome Sharon. You will find a lot of useful information on gardenweb especially this forum. You can use the search feature to see if any question you have has been answered before posting a new one. The people here are a friendly group always ready to help with a gardening problem.

I like Adam's suggestion for the New England Garden Socieity (NEWFS) Garden in the Woods in Framingham MA. They specialize in native plants and have a lovely naturalized garden that you can tour. Many local libraries have passes to this Garden or it is well worth joining. Their bookstore has many titles relevant to New England plants and gardening. I am a member and just recently got the course catalog of the upcoming courses offered there if you are interested in native plant courses or art classes. I've taken a few classes there and they were very well done.

See the link for more info.

Here is a link that might be useful: NEWFS Home Page

Sharon,

Re the book, you might want to also try the Victory Garden books. WGBH who hosts the series is based in Boston, so most of the information applies. There's a lot more there than you'll need, but almost every library locally has them, so they're easy to look at.

Also, this is one thing I learned from watching This Old House and that is that the nurserys have their sales in Sept/Oct as it's the end of their season. The first year we were here I bought rhododendrums, low bush cranberries, vibirnum, and burning bush.

Twelve years later, here's what's happened to them. Gave the rhodos away, they didn't do well and the cranberries eventually were overwhelmed by ferns. One of the two vibirnums is trying to be a tree, the other didn't last, and the two burning bush plants are trying to seed the entire yard and grow as big as my two-story house.

So, overall, I'd say it was a success.

dajjmum -
Belle Isis's recc. of The New England Gardener Book of Lists, written by Karan Davis Cutler ©2000 is a wonderful read and a great suggestion.
While you have your library card out, you might want to read or reread, the great book the AHS deems, "one of the 75 most important horticulture books published in the past 75 years", Herbaceous Perennial Plants by Allan Armitage ©1997.
So, what type of soil have you got there?
Any questions I'm certain we all will be willing to take a stab at and answer for you. Should you need to contact, off-thread, be my guest.
Best,
PP

For general interest and to get a feel for New England gardening, you might want to read some of Thalassa Cruso's books. They're out of print, but you can still get them from places like Amazon.com or possibly a library.

She was an Englishwoman from an avid gardening family who moved to New England and struggled with two new gardens here. She then starred in a television show and was considered the gardening Julia Child. A lot of fun to watch, and to read.

Claire

Sharon,

Hi, and welcome! I moved here a year ago from the DC area. Let me second the advice about gloves and hats. The best purchase I ever made last fall was an excellent pair of very warm BOOTS. And don't forget a really biiiiiig warm scarf. It gets cold here!

I would leave the roses alone-- they'll probably be fine. If you really want to take up roses as a hobby, you can cover these with burlap or leaves or something in case they're not hardy. But my own philosophy is that what dies over the winter dies, and then I can replace it with something hardier. There are many excellent hardy roses out there, and I'm not big on pampering plants. ;-)

I prune when the forsythia blooms in early spring, which here in Boston is in mid-April. (I'm afraid winter really is that long. I'm looking into taking up cross-country skiing this winter, because last year I went absolutely nuts sitting around indoors. I don't think we got snow before Thanksgiving though.)

Sharon, Welcome to Peabody, I grew up here in the older section next to Gallows Hill in Salem (now Witch Craft Heights)
Now I live in a area (Crow Village) that used to be known for the carrot and onion growing.

Never mind plants, you need;
Snow shovels, there are several types. straight handles and ergonomic handles. Don't buy a 2.00 shovel. There sold every place, Costco, hardware stores, Sears etc. some times at grocery stores.

Snow brush and Ice scrapers, can of (spray) windshield de-icer, gallon of windshield washer fluid (one that de-ices) not all de-ice. If you drive in the winter you will be using the windshield washers often so don't run out of fluid. One for each for each vehicle.

You may want to get one some now to plow your driveway or work a deal with a neighbor with a snow blower.

In two of the last 3 years we had 37" snow storms, Noreasters you can expect drifting as well.

Its more important to be warm and dry than to look cool or fashionable.

Brooksby Farm (owned and operated by the city) (at a profit) off of Lowell St. has pick your own apples going on now or the farm store has cider, apples, veggies etc. Cross country skiing when we have snow.
Have your heater, furnace, boiler checked before it gets cold, not all oil delivery companies do service. Much of W. Peabody has oil heat.

Take the kids to the horribles parade in Salem tonight, its a mix of mardi gras, Halloween, history and insanity. Be prepared to walk some, Salem doubles its population today and some down town business actually close because of the size and number of people who attend.

If I can be of any further assistance let me know.

Welcome to Peabody, and don't forget to vote early and often.

Ron

sharon,
welcome. my best gardening-book advice, aside from dirr's book on trees and shrubs, is The Well-Tended Perennial Garden - just the BEST for perennials care, and Horticulture and Fine Gardening magazines- both New Eng. published and full of timely articles. Near you, Long Hill is a garden-estate in Ipswich with an active gardening group and annual plant sale; the Arnold Arboretum in Boston-
maybe 40 min drive for you- is a historic internationally-important and famous collection of trees and shrubs- owned by Harvard University. beautiful place to walk any time of yr. the Mass Hort Society has a fairly new home in a suburb west of boston- wellesley- with many display gardens.
if you want to grow some of your cal. tropicals, go to the tropicals forum on the gardenweb. best of luck. i personally do not feel that new englanders are a friendly,welcoming group, but the gardeners here surely are!