Hi Michelle,

I don't have any recommendations for books, but I just wanted to say WELCOME to gardening in the high, dry Rocky Mountain area! Wet Florida to high plains desert! Oh, are you ever in for some learning! Maybe the best thing I can recommend is to "cultivate" your Sense of Humor! It'll help!

It's been really slow around here lately, but there are a lot of people here who have a whole lot of good info to help you, so definitely come here with your questions! And, in my experience, "real experience" is often better than a book anyway, so when you get help/answers here it's almost always from somebody who's already dealt with whatever it is you're trying to figure out. We're also pretty good with Moral Support when things go wrong! Most of us have looked for a shoulder to cry on at some point or another!

Also, since 2007 we've had two plant swaps a year here in the Denver area, so you might want to check out the current Spring Swap thread, which is still in the planning stages, and see if you might possibly want to come to that. You don't need to have any plants to bring! I'll be posting all this info on the new swap thread soon, but if you have any questions right now about what or how we do it, here's a link to last year's spring swap thread. Go to the second reply where it says: "Basic Swap FAQs!"

Welcome to RMG,

Skybird

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2848434/spring-swap-official-site

Thanks so much, Skybird! I'm looking forward to the swap and I appreciate your advice very much. Looking over the forum now to see what goes wrong out here. Looks like it is bindweed.

ROFL! Yes! Bindweed most definitely DOES go wrong out here! And in a lot of other places too! But you definitely have a sense of humor, so I'd say you're gonna do just fine gardening out here!

:-D

Skybird

First and foremost welcome to RMG. We like to think we're friendliest little group of gardeners this side of the Mississippi and the internet! What part of the Rockies are you gardening in?

Bindweed is annoying, and another weed that you may be faced with is thistle, and if you're really lucky, mullein (which started showing up in my yard last year).

but my biggest frustration is the weather. 3 weeks of 70° and then a foot of snow and a week of freezing temps. Lather, rinse repeat from February through May. Then when "second winter" is finally over, though sometimes they overlap, it's hail season. And throughout the rest of the season, its "feast or famine" weather. Deluges of rain followed by weeks on end of not even seeing a cloud. Then it's back to hail season and pre-winter. Then we might get an Indian summer before first winter begins.

Then there's the soil, though probably exactly opposite of what you have in Florida. Instead of crappy sand, its crappy clay. Unlike the weather, though, soil can be controlled by the gardener, and plants can be chosen that tolerate it.

Always glad to see new faces around here. Hopefully this place picks up the pace here soon, I imagine everyone is busy outside in the sun rather than holed up indoors on the 'puter.

Welcome! I chuckled reading Zach's description. It's comically realistic. And what Skybird said about having a sense of humor really is good advice.

Since it's a relatively short season here, I think we tend to pack a lot of excitement into a small period of time, a bit like stuffing a two-week vacation into one day. You gotta make the most of it!

You won't be able to grow the same things as you did in Florida. You won't be able to throw a rotten tomato over the deck railing and have it grow a tomato plant. You'll baby things you love. You'll have a lot of trial and error.

The good news is that you've found this place. People are great here and the swaps are amazing. My backyard gardens were populated with a lot of free plants. We are all good sharers.

best advice is to find those that are drought tolerant. The high altitude plus the wind from Wyoming usually drys out the soil quickly here. I love mullein, it's a great plant and drought tolerant too. I collected seeds and have spread them around the alley behind our house. Plus it's a medicinal plant and you can make teas to treat stubborn coughs.

Not to get off on a tagent, but mullein is a listed invasive weed in Colorado. Granted it is list C, but that is only because they realize eradication is futile, not because it is benign. Having spent far more time than a human being ought to removing mullein (and other noxious and invasive plants) from public lands, I cannot recommend propagating them, regardless of how appealing they may be.

Welcome Michelle! DW and I were just traveling down a road yesterday afternoon and she says, "Oh, look!" "What? Where, where??"

"Oh, just the petunias. I know, this is petunia country."

And, it is. There is a book, Rocky Mountain Gardening, month-by-month, discussed recently on the forum, but I haven't read it yet. Maybe others can tell you about its usefulness with regards to flower gardening.

Petunias. I vaguely noticed a large pot as we sped by ... the homeowner must have found some nice ones at the garden center. I understand that impatiens are actually #1 in the US and petunias are #2 in popularity. Ignore that. My impatien flowers shriveled almost before opening! Petunias.

Steve

Michelle,

Here are Colorado State University's

Annual Flower Trials, &

Gardening with Flowers

Steve

Welcome to Colorado and RMG!

Lots of great advice and friendships here.

Though I had been gardening for many years, since joining RMG, I have learned soooooo much!!! I've learned about how great sedums, hens and chicks, and ajuga are. Skybird has been very instrumental in instructing on how to propagate plants - I even started a large shrub/tree. It's fun, rewarding and saves a ton of $$.

I look forward to meeting you at the spring swap.