I am in SE Wisconsin. The soil in the state ranges from about 5.5 to 7.9. Where I live it is usually about 6.8 so pretty close to ideal for most things. The soil is clay, but not horrible clay. This clay can really grow some great stuff as long as it is amended and kept from getting bone dry.

Hazards are numerous here for the gardens. Squirrels are a sure sight in any property with large trees. Rabbits are all over, deer are plentiful in the rural areas and a rural area here is pretty much anywhere. I see deer at my office in Milwaukee. Raccoons and others are also represented. For the most part a fence stops most of the problems, just not the squirrels.

Pests? There is one primary pest here that is the state bird, the mosquito. Garden pests are numerous, but generally controllable. The exception is the Japanese Beetle which decimates anything it wants and quickly. No natural predators for it so it worsens each year. Thankfully my yard has only seen a handful of them in past years. I have seen properties with thousands and plants get shredded.

In the middle of Iowa. What can I say....the soil is black as coal and the top soil goes to Middle Earth. Most of the time we get just the right amount of rain and sunshine.
I can get bitterly cold some winters and sometimes I lose perennials, but you learn what lives and what to pile the mulch on.
I may speak too soon, but haven't seen any Japanese Beetles here.....yet.
And in May, Iowa is close to perfect, if the twisters stay away!!
Linda C

Pacific Northwest, near Puget Sound, where you can grow anything! Soils differ depending on location - can be rather clayey in some areas, sandy in others. Mine is great - rich, organic and well-draining, due to many years of amending and improving.

Weather allows year round gardening and a hugely wide range of hardy plants. Raininess is overrated - this area actually receives far less annual rainfall than many other parts of the country (including most of Texas), but it comes in small, light doses over an extended period (November to March, sometimes well into April). Very little rain during the summer months (typically a summer drought area) and generally mildly warm temperatures. It is unusual to have summer temperatures exceed the mid 80's.

Primary pest are slugs :-) Fungal problems can crop up in our damp, mild springs but most folks here know how to deal with them well or select resistant varieties.

A sunny day in May here is drop-dead gorgeous - clear blue skies, light breeze, views of still snow-capped mountains on all sides and sunlight sparkling off the Sound or one of dozens of lakes, several of them very large. Darn hard to beat anywhere else in the country.

Goergia here - just north of Atlanta. Everybody's place sounds wonderful. I want the black dirt from Iowa and the snow-capped mountains from Puget Sound.
The soil is red clay - pure red clay. South Georgia has more sandy soil, but most of the state is clay. Lots of naturally occuring pine trees and dogwoods - although a blight is gradually killing the dogwoods. The soil is acidic.

It's hard to grow Mediterranean plants here or any other plants that can't take months of humidity. Lilacs seldom work here because there isn't enough cold. Foxgloves and some other English garden favorites are annuals for us for the same reason.

But we can grow almost everything else. The growing season begins in March and lasts until November. And plenty of plants bloom in winter. And if I had to leave this zone, I would miss gardenias and jasmine. The native plants are stunning - wild azaleas come to mind.

Pests - we get Japanese beetles although I never see them because I don't have anything they like to eat. Except for infestations of white flies some summers, I don't really see insect pests. Black spot is rampant on roses. Mildew is a problem on crape myrtles. You really have to select fungus resistant phlox. We have the usual animal pests - rabbits and deer. Everyone is reporting a lot of snakes this spring - most of them harmless. And of course, we have fire ants - nasty little creatures. Lots of birds, lots of butterflies, and more trees than you can imagine. And lots and lots of rain. It really is a gardener's paradise.

I'm zone 6a in a veritable sea of zone 5 once you get away from the Lake Huron shore. My home was originally built and landscaped by the owner of a large nursery/greenhouse operation, so he took great pains in making sure the soil was good. I have about 12 inches of loam to sandy loam over clay. The property is gently sloped, so drainage is very good. I don't till, choosing instead to mulch with pine fines each year. The worms seem to love it, so I'm happy too. Soil pH is just south of 7, and I never have to add any P to soil because it's from Saginaw River flood plane & full of marine animal skeletal remains. I usually only supplement the gardens with Potash. I have many raised beds for growing on bonsai starts with soil that I built from pine bark, sphagnum peat, Turface, and sand. First freezes are usually in late Sep, but sometimes earlier or later. Last freezes are usually mid to late May. We never get enough rain, so I have to water the gardens along with some 200 plants in containers.
Rarely a deer. Woodchucks aren't fast enough to avoid lead poisoning, and the rabbits are horrendous - a never ending war. I have about 200 fallow acres behind my home that is reverting to woodland and it produces rabbits that are numbered in millions. I'm quite certain that my yard is genetically imprinted in all MI rabbit DNA.

I try to keep the right plant in the right spot, which really helps with insects. Strong plants can resist most insect pests. I use neem oil when I need help & find it extremely effective on all but hard scales, unless in crawler stage. Occasionally, I'll have a plant with mildew, but not too often.

Cheers.

Al

Connecticut coast here. Growing season is from about the second or third week in April through Thanksgiving. This year, our last frost was on April 11 although it's still possible to have another for a week or so yet. The first fall frost can come anytime between mid-September to mid-October. Soil is variable depending strongly on your location. My site is almost pure sand in some areas, clay in others, and a wonderful combination of both in another spot...glacier soil. Most of us have acidic soils perfect for hydrangeas, azaleas, rhoddies, daphne, ferns, holly, etc.

Best of all, New England grows rocks & we have wonderful 300+ year old rock walls to prove it. Most every New England gardener has a pile of rocks somewhere on their property. Granite, to be more specific. There's a reason New Hampshire's known as the Granite State!

Because I live within 100' of Fisher Island Sound (part of greater Long Island Sound), our weather is moderated quite a bit from that of interior New England. We are warmer in the fall & winter, cooler in the spring & summer. Also get a lot of that coastal marine layer engulfing us in fog...primarily in June and/or early July. I love working in my garden on a mild, foggy day.

It's a tough call for me as to whether I enjoy spring or fall the best. New England is known for glorious falls and for very good reason. Our climate produces the brillant reds that other areas often lack in the fall. However, April & May are also glorious...emerald green grass, flowering trees everywhere, daffs, azaleas, rhoddies, and a host of spring perennials make spring's color palette a delight.

I'm a Zone 6(b) or 7(a) so have a pretty broad range of plants that perform well here. Cold enough for lilacs & warm enough for passiflora. We get the occassional summer humid spell but nothing like the south.

Precipitation ranges from 50-60" a year depending on where you are in New England. During a "normal" growing season, I probably only need to provide supplemental water 2-4 times. Last summer was very dry & I watered more than I ever had but it was warm and dry all over the country. We normally receive adequate summer T-storms to keep our gardens watered. We are lucky in that while some of the storms can be severe...hail and/or tornados are rare (though not unheard of). Our summer temps here in Mystic are usually in the mid to upper 70's although we can get a heat wave into the 90's though not every year. January is our coldest month and the daytime high averages 38 degrees with night averages of around 20 degrees. Snowfall here along the coast is usually 2 1/2' or less. But, a good Nor'easter that happens to hit us hardest can drop that much with one storm. This year, we had virtually no snow all winter in Mystic.

I've gardened in SoCA, Nevada, New Hampshire, & Connecticut. Connecticut is, IMO, the best. Such a large variety of plants do well here and the natural scenery is just spectacular...from the rocky coast line of Maine to the rolling hills of Western Connecticut to coastal estuaries of Rhode Island & Connecticut to the winter ski resorts in Vermont/Maine/New Hampshire, to Cape Cod...there's something for everyone. Yesterday, I enjoyed a white egret in my garden & a walk hardly passes w/o saying "hello" to a pair of swans. The downside is that the gulls frequently dive-bomb my car! I am located under a butterfly migration route & late summer brings scores to the butterfly bushes. Most of New England is forested with white birch (White Mountains of New Hampshire is famous for their white birch), a great variety of conifers, oaks, & maples. Mountain Laurel is native. Blueberries grow wild in northern New England.

All in all, it's a great place to be a gardener. We are battling Jap beetles & the Asiastic lily beetle. There's a new one coming soon...the viburnum beetle which is already plaguing parts of northern New York but which, fortunately, hasn't reached me yet. Since our summers can be humid...associated diseases can be a problem but with good cultural practices most can be controlled w/o resorting to chemicals.

I use yards and yards of compost every year amending our soil but, fortunately, mother nature provides plenty of free materials every fall when the leaves begin to blow. Oh, and apple-picking season is the greatest! Of course, so is maple sugaring time...lol

Northern Virginia here. (Very different from the coastal region or the Piedmont region.)

My home is in zone 6b/7 "suburban" Northern Virginia, Fairfax County, which is rapidly becoming much more like a wide-spread (640 square miles) city with a few tiny pockets of rural-like acreage, many large-to-humongeous malls surrounded by typical suburban communities and miles of highways - which all seem to suffer from terminal congestion. People come to the area for the multicultural amenities, cultural and intellectual availability, superb school systems, and many historical sites as well as the proximity to political DC, and high-paying technical jobs. New residents are often shell-shocked when they discover the cost-of-living ratio is one of the highest in the US.

The climate is true sub-tropical with sweltering, humid, high-temperature summers bookended with fabulous spring and fall seasons; winters are noted for variability with 60-70* days interspersing foot-deep blizzards or 20* weeks. Ice storms are not rare (in fact, most 'snow' is actually very icy and totally different from snow in the North or Mid-west states; knowledgeable residents treat a local 2" snow with the same respect others treat a 1/2" ice since they often are essentially the same). In the summer and fall, tropical storms are common, with hurricanes and tornadoes spinning up the coast and often overland through the middle of the state. The weather is not necessarily a negative, since an astounding abundance of plants are very happy in zones 6 and 7. Negatives are around, but with typical Virginian variability: JBs - you either have none or your plants are a rainbowed mass of voracious beetle-jaws; various mildews and plant viruses are the same, you either have none or wonder what can possibly survive; rain - the lack of it is contributing to a local drought, although counties to the east, south and west are either receiving enough rainfall or are too wet. Much of the area's watershed is suffering from the effects of too much herbicide and pesticide use: a textbook example of what happens when a million individuals each believe they have the right to use those substances however they wish: more than one-half of the Cheasapeake Bay is considered to be dead and most rivers and streams are invisibly but severely polluted. Local news stations and newspapers have run in-depth articles on the pervading pollution, but most residents still grab the herbicide to kill a dandelion rather than pouring a cupful of boiling water over the offender. It is possible (not easy) to find an area to garden organically, but OGers are more likely to choose to live 100+ miles away.

I have some rural acreage in the mountains, just northwest of the Shenandoah valley. The soil is very clay-ey, with much gravel and many large rocks; hardpan (an impermeable rock-like substance) is often just below the surface. The air is clean and the many creeks are clear; and the seasons are cooler zone 6; great for growing apples as well as most vegs and flowers. There are no special negatives, unless you include having to drive 10 miles to the nearest little grocery store, 15 miles to the nearest plant nursery (and at today's gas prices, that may be a big negative). The neighbors aren't very nearby, but they are good people and gardening is a common pursuit. When I'm there, I always think that life is good.

I love it! You guys are sharing such great info I feel like I'm there with you!

I guess I should fill-in more holes:

Other pests - armadillos in the hill country! they pull plants up by the roots while looking for bugs. They aren't in my neighborhood but they are in one 2 miles away. You sometimes see dead armadillos on the sides of rural hwys - believe it or not their defense mechanism is to jump! Poor things! And I have no idea if we have jap beetles but everyone else seems to have them! I'd better do my research!

Seasons - Spring is early March to May (60-80* highs), Summer is often through mid-Sept (easily 90-100*; if you can help it. don't come vacation in TX July or August. Wouldn't want you to think it's that bad all the time!) Winter doesn't really start til Dec (highs in the 50s, lows really in the 40s. The TX panhandle & El Paso areas get more snow/freezing weather than we do, but in my area I'd say we get freezing precip that melts by mid-morning a couple of times a year. It's mostly ice so everything pretty much shuts down or is delayed b/c we Texans don't do ice (my husband is terrified of me living/driving anywhere else!)

Local area - I live close to Austin and EVERYONE wants to live in/around Austin. It really is a cool town - state capital, great Univ, pretty, safe, outdoor activities, live music capital of the world... and it's right at the beginning of the TX Hill Country so there's lots to do if you want to drive to various small towns!

triciae - you should work for the chamber of commerce - you make it sound wonderful there!

Al - my MIL lives in Romeo, MI (N of Detroit). There's a chance my husband will take me to the Ann Arbor area, so your info will help me know what to expect if that happens. And I'm jealous! Buying your house from a gardener with great soil!

username - I know mosquitos are bad in MN, I guess it would make sense that they're bad in WI! I always pictured them a southern pest (not by me though - too dry.) My neighbors ust moved from MN & she misses her garden there. Lots of Canadian roses & of course better soil/rainfall.

lindac - no wonder Iowa is farm country - the soil sounds incredible! My cousin-in-law majored in soil something-or-other at NC State and is chomping at the bit to move to Iowa!

sugarhill - your place sounds the most like mine. i don't live in high desert or anything - we're actually more pastureland with rocky soil beneath. and 30" of rain total, but it's really 4" in one day anf then 60 days without... it's crazy. we have deer & jackrabbits & stupid black spot! what do you spray on your roses? Georgia is someplace I wouldn't mind living - warm climate, more rain & rural in many places!

gardengal - funny to hear that you're dry in the summer! i never would have thought that. i agree with what you said about the northwest being unbeatable when the sun is shining. i told my husband that if it were more sunny, it would be one of the most overpopulated areas in the country. it is stunningly beautiful, and lots of outdoor activities!

Meldy - GREAT info. Not only about your gardening issues, but the general area as well! i'm in the "Dry spot" in our area, too - the rain seems to completely pass us by sometimes! It's interesting that you were in drought, too. We had less than half of our avg rainfall last yr (June '05 - Feb '06). But since March
we've had tons of rain! We'll see how the summer turns out.

Coastal plain in Southern California, about 10 miles inland. Climate is extremely mild, summers rarely exceed 90 degrees, the average high temperature of our hottest month (September) is only 78 degrees with low humidity. Winter temperatures are usually in the 60's during the day and mid-40's at night. All time record low temperature is 27 degrees. We typically see no rain at all from May to November most years and 13 inches falls during our "rainy season" which is mostly January through March. Soil in my yard ranges from sandy loam to loamy sand. Very fertile with a pH of about 7.5.

Hazards are lack of winter chill adequate for many temperate fruits and summers too cool for development of good flavor in some low chill varieties. Winters a bit too chilly for most tropical plants. Drought, buildup of salts in soil during the summer months, powdery mildew because of overcast but dry weather from the middle of May through June, whiteflies and aphids.

Ryan