New Life? New Blog...

A Northeastern Dragon settles into a warmer climate...

Palm trees... There's more than one...

You can take the boy out of the northeast--that's easy. Teaching the boy to garden in a Zone 10 after he's lived his entire life gardening in a Zone 6?

That takes a bit of time, not to mention a fair amount of mourning for long-time favorites you can no longer plant on a regular basis.

Of course, there's the flip side of never having to replant your impatiens, your geraniums, your coleus... And since I've always been more than a bit partial to impatiens...? That *is* a bright side...

There is also more than one kind of palm tree, did you know? Perhaps that was a bit naive on my part, but I thought palm trees were palm trees unless they were coconut trees.

LOTS of different kinds of palm trees... See here if you care, suffice it to say you may be a bit overwhelmed... Again, bright side? The number of trees you can grow is much larger than a north-easterner would expect. Winner winner chicken dinner!

Lizards, lizards everywhere...

Starting a new garden takes times, not necessarily a yard...

And don't get me started on wildlife... A lot more of it comes in scales than fur... Geckos, iguanas, salamanders, and a crapload of others that I neither know the name of or care to find in my bathtub, like this little guy who was hanging out in the tree just outside my backdoor. This leggy snake-like cousin was about a footlong and so well blended into the tree I only saw him when my cat started his stalk-mode creep on the kitchen floor toward the backdoor...

But in actuality, I'm starting this blog because

• I miss writing, and
• I had a strange dream in which I was weeding purple flowers from between my kitchen tiles and awoke in a foul mood because I woke up before I could finish weeding said kitchen floor!

What, you think this a strange reason to blog? Eh, I've heard worse... Read worse... Seen worse...

And thus I share with you here the beginnings of my new garden, in plastic containers, a pallet or two, discarded pots, and a number of yard sale finds. One need not three-quarters of an acre under deciduous trees, or even a six foot wide, twenty foot long alley barren of grass (although this is what I find myself with currently) as I have seen many the apartment dwelling gardner using their small patio or windowsill to scratch that greenthumb bug...

However, if you own my cat, a windowsill won't cut it. Beaux doesn't like to share the space, and besides that, he eats anything he can fit in his mouth. Makes for a great cockroach killer, but not so much a good garden friend...

So with that, here's the new blog. An Absolute Debarkle. To be filled with the exploits, foibles, downfalls, pitfalls, screw-ups and, hopefully, a few success stories on learning to garden in a Zone 10.

Thank god for google...