See the following on-line gardening articles for a good basic start.

Here is a link that might be useful: Suite 101 gardening lessons

Carnations are difficult to grow successfully in the garden. It can be done, but they are difficult so I would wait on those until you have some experience under your belt and you understand (from experience) the information at creatrix's link.

Due to the difficulty virtually all store bought carnations are grown in heated greenhouses where everything is precisely controlled 24 hours a day.

If you love the scent of carnations though, there is nothing like a carnation from the earth so they are well worth it. You should definitely give them a try sometime, but get some experience under your belt so you don't end up disappointed with results.

They can be grown from seed, but you might like to purchase some and plant those out to get your feet wet with them as they require quite a while to grow from seed to plant out size and they are not very hardy during this stage.

Something that might work well with carnations is a method called winter sowing. Once you feel comfortable with the basics you might check out the winter sowing forum here and ask if anyone has experience with carnations using this method.

I'd agree that carnations are not the easiest plant to grow for even an experienced gardener. They grow well in my climate, but peter out after a couple of seasons. But a carnation relative that is very easy to grow are cottage pinks or dianthus. They resemble carnations except for height and flower composition - nearly all are single. But they do have considerable carnation-spicy fragrance. They only require a lot of sun and well draining soil and are very long lasting in the garden.

Get in touch with your local county extension office. Have a soil test done, see what kind of booklets, pamphlets, or handouts they might have on hand. Let them make suggestions as to web sites and/or books pertinent to your locale.

Ditto on the carnations. Ixnay! But once you discover those garden Pinks (dianthus)....LOOK OUT! I grow my own from seed because I can find more varieties that way.

Here is a link that might be useful: Your new best friends

You might also want to investigate 'Sweet William' - Dianthus barbatus. It can be either biennial or perennial and comes in many shades of white/red/prink. It is also scented.

Your main hassle with carnations will probably be humidity.

They will grow in pots - terracotta works well - and a freedraining potting mix with some lime added.

The big exotic florists' carnations can be difficult, but grow well using a hydroponic system to get those perfect blooms.

If you don't mind the shorter versions with the occasional(!) split calyx then buy or sprout your own seeds and treat them as either annuals or biennials. You'll get a lot of different colours this way. Any you really fall in love with you can probably take cuttings/pipes from for planting out the following year.

They'll tolerate frost down to -7C but don't like excessive damp. Most important that they have good sun and air movement, plus sharp drainage.

PS even if you are currently a newbie, it doesn't last long and there is no reason why you couldn't get into small-scale hydroponics if that intrigues you.

While I am not sure hydroponics is ideal for a newbie, I can personally attest to the fact that one learns a ton from hydroponic growing on even a small scale.

Hydroponic growing basically involves removing nature from the equation altogether and requires the grower to provide absolutely everything the plant requires 24x7 or it dies within hours.

Great for a crash course in what plants actually need and definitely does wonders to seperate the facts from the BS when it comes to gardening.

Hey Yuki,

We're from the same area. The best thing now would be to start preping your soil, unless you have established beds in which case I would still amend with comost, we have what's called 'clay gumbo' which is crazy hard to work. So now's the time. Lay out a small bed, get a pitchfork/turning fork whatever, get one that is heavy duty. Buy some bags or get a load of compost-you want to add about 3-6" of compost to the bed (I like fine earth organic compost from lowes). Then start digging it into the soil. With our clay, you HAVE to mix the compost in quickly, if you leave it exposed over one day the clay will dry and you have to take a pick ax to it-I learned the hard way. You can tear out the grass before or pick it out as you go. You can also mix in things like green sand (40lb/1000sf), cornmeal, molasses (I spray on top), lava sand (40lb/200sf)-I added the sands but I thin the evidence for these is lousy, I't wasn't expensive so it wasn't a big deal for me. DO NOT amend with any sort of regular sand, sand+clay=adobe unless you amend with something like >20% sand.

You'll want to throw mulch over the bare soil or cover crop so it doesn't erode away over the winter.

Now is a nice time to do this cause it's cool (when I did it it was nearly 100F-I though I was gonna die), and the ground will kinda work itself over the winter. A soil test is a really good idea, and then you can add and work in whatever the suggested amendments are.

Re carnations: I've never grown one, I don't like their smell..I guess that's odd. Anyway, I agree pinks/dianthus are pretty-they are really more winter/spring flowers here in my experience, sweet william is easy to grow from seed too. I don't think they stand up to our heat, but im not sure. Ask the Tx forum, they are crazy nice.

However, I think that marigolds look similar, and they are just about the easiest plant in the world to grow. Maybe try them next year. Zinias are also easy and popular here, they are a bit scraggly but have a world of colors. Our heat is brutal on plants, we have to select plants carefully or they just melt.

Hello Yuki,

I realize you didn't mention veggies as an interest. I will share my story, and it may inspire you. We both live in Plano (we should get a Plano gardening club together, I keep bumping into plano folks who garden in the past month) and such have similiar environs. I made a 9' x 14' x 5.5" raised bed for veggies in less than 10 hours of labor total, and now have 13 rows of veggies growing. I planted on sept 28th, and maybe it could be done now with more 'winterized' veggies (kale, cabbage, spinach, carrots and so forth).

I'm preping and transplanting to the beds some perineals from neighbors, as well as from seed packages (gotten at a steep discount at the local Big Lots a month or so ago). All that said, its a snap to get growing, just build a compost pile, get clippings and such before Plano Pure does, neighbors don't mind even when I didn't ask, and in return I have given them all veggies from the garden (they are very happy and smile and wave now every day :).

Its a good thing, and maybe you could do veggies *and* flowers, and have organically grown right in your backyard. I do, and its a hoot.