choose your climate
I've been getting mail and comments from readers in the northern climes who are perhaps a little jealous of the fine days we have been having here lately. Snow is already starting to fall along the northern border.
It all balances out I suppose. They have their winters and we have our unbearable summers. I spent a winter in Chicago once long ago and I am not sure I could go through that again. I remember wrapping up in layers and fortifying myself with strong coffee to trudge down to the El station in the mornings. I was exhausted by the time I arrived at my destination.
I've also spent many summers in Houston, with rain every afternoon followed by triple-digit temperatures that made it seem like I wsa in a steam room. When I moved to North Texas the air felt so dry I had to use moisturizer on my skin but it makes the temperatures more bearable.
You could be like my father-in-law and live in South Texas in winter and Missouri in the summer. He lives in an RV though with no garden to call his own.
If you want to garden you have to stick to one place and live through all the seasons there. There are probably some places with perfect weather all year. California or Hawaii maybe. But most of us will probably have to choose either terrible summers or terrible winters.
Posted by Bill Hopkins on November 10, 2004 07:59 PMThe incomparible Henry Mitchell writes in his essay "On the Defiance of Gardeners" (The Essential Earthman) that "It is not nice to garden anywhere. Everywhere there are violent winds, startling once-per-five-centuries floods, unprecedented droughts, record-setting freezes, abusive and blasting heats never known before. There is no place, no garden where these terrible things do not drive gardeners mad...There are only gardeners and non-gardeners. Defiance...is what makes gardeners."
Posted by: M Stevens (Austin) at November 10, 2004 10:00 PMLooking at it that way, I guess I would choose the terrible winters. One can always add ten more layers of clothing, but it's impossible to shed enough to stay cool in triple-digit temperature summers. The humidity would do me in.
As far as being gardenless goes, I don't thik I could ever do it. My husband has been wanting to move to a highrise condominium close to downtown, but I'm a suburbs gal. One unit did come on the market, a penthouse unit, where the entire rooftop was the owners' space. It was huge, along with a very large wrap-around balcony. Now that I could get into. It would be entirely container gardening, but about as private as you could get in a multi-family dwelling. Alas, the condo fees were exhorbitant.
Posted by: Leslie at November 11, 2004 09:53 AMOh I am with Leslie! I can always get warm, I cant always get cool.
Actually Bill, You would LOVE the NW! it is actually very mild! rarely snows, rarely gets really hot, but when it does you hear us bitch.
We can garden year round, you just have to grow winter friendly things.
Posted by: mary lou at November 11, 2004 04:34 PMI aggree with M Stevens and Henry Mitchell! I defy the Texas weather!! (Until August...then I surrender utterly to air conditioning...nobody's perfect!)
However, I would like to experience just one snowy winter, for contrast at least.
Posted by: Marthachick at November 12, 2004 11:05 AMMy part of the PNW is almost perfect. A couple of snows, a week of triple digits...that's about it for extremes. But Henry Mitchell had it right. Gardeners will always be victims of some freak weather condition and will stand defiant!
Posted by: sally at November 13, 2004 12:31 PM