Hello Texas!

We (DH, myself and plants and all) just got safely here (El Paso, TX) 10 days ago, and I'm happy to meet you all! Though everything looks different than Miami (starting with the weather, the plants in my landlord's garden, traffic, surrounding landscapes and sightseeing...), I am calling it home!
The only thing I will really miss is leaving all my friends behind, but surely I'll get some here!
And guess what? My beautiful gardenia, all green and shiny and healthy, decided that she loved the trip (3 days of driving...) and the new location, and flowered for me and for all of you!

Alexandra (aka. goofybulb)

Welcome Alexandra!!!!!! TX is a big state... and we have a BIG heart..... I hope you love your new home there, and I know you will make all kinds of friends .. course you will always have your DG friends!

Ah.... I can almost smell the gardenia from here.. one of my favs.. but my blooms are gone!

Nice to meet you!
Becky

Hi Alex. Been lurking on the Florida forum and see that you had a recent trip to your home. Glad you are back in the states and hope you enjoy your new home.
Texas is a whole 'nuther world.

Christi

Welcome to the Lone Star State Y'all........easy living, fun loving bunch of folks here in Texas. Take yer boots off and sit a spell, a big ole glass of Sweet tea headed your way!

"eyes"

Alexandra,

I will tell you the same thing everyone told me three years ago when we moved to Austin from Southern California...................Welcome To Texas!

Wonderful friendly people here. Hope you enjoy it.

Pam

Well I have only been a transplanted Texan for 45 years, and I still love it.
Welcome to Texas Alexandra.
Josephine.

welcome to Texas! Hope you love it here!

Welcome. I came kicking and screaming to Texas 15 years ago. There is a lot to love here and the people are definitely one of those things.

Welcome to you Alexandra!! Hope you can embrace the TX way of life and enjoy the ride.
I was born here and will likely die here too. I have no plans to leave my beloved TX. No complaining about anything in here except the weather that is! But just wait a spell and that is apt to change!
You can find me on the Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening Forum with a lot of your Florida friends.
Sheila_FW

This message was edited Jun 13, 2008 7:01 PM

Welcome to Texas, Alexandra! Glad you're settling in and getting acquainted with your new city and state! I'm another one of the born and bred here type Texans, so you won't find me complaining much about our wonderful state. It truly is a unique place to live.

Welcome to Texas! I know you will come to love our state. I am a life-long resident.

Welcome to Texas!!
We've only been here a year come July and love it already and everyone here is Wonderful so friendly and helpful.

Thank you all for your welcomes! I am happy to be here!
While I'm sipping some tea from "Eyes", I think of a great pair of boots for my hubby, and I am smiling to you all that are greeting me here! It appears that, transplanted - like Pam, Josephine or Bananna- or native like Sheila or Stephanie, Texans really have a big heart!
Christi, long time no see!! I am planning a thread with my three places that I call HOME. Right now it's only in my head, as I just can't decide where to post it.
For some, it might be a little confusing, sometimes it's even for me, LOL... but I can't help it. I guess once you put "a little soul and soil" in it, you call it home. So, I have home-home (this is Bucharest, Romania), Miami-home, and El Paso-home.
Thanks for the weather warning, Sheila! That won't influence my feelings... let me put it this way: when i first arrived in Miami 6 years ago (I am from Romania, a 4 seasons country), I thought I've entered a huge laundry room. And I still got attached to it. Now I've already been here for 10 days, and I started to ignore the hot dry air that enters my nose at every breath. I'm smiling at my husband and think: we are home again.
I can tell you all that I've been impressed of the variety of places Texas has, as we've been traveling along on I10 to get here. Practically, we cut the whole state from east to west! And at half point in our trip (crossing the Texas state border) we already felt like getting home!
I still didn't visit much of El Paso, with all the unpacking, but let me tell you: I've never seen so many oleanders in flower anywhere else on earth! And all the people we've met here were all smiles and ready to help!
I will have to get familiar with the plants here and I will need all the help I can get. So, I'll try to be good and present on DG.
Garden party for Texas!

I don't want to miss anybody, so hello Becky, and Blues and Gabriell and Mibus! It's nice to meet you and thanks for the welcoming words!
one hot hibiscus for each of you!

Oh gee thanks flowers I love Gardenia's & hibiscus and roses of course with being near Tyler the Short Stem Rose Capital.
Aren't the oleanders wonderful looking I have watched them come into bloom on my bus routes and fallen in love with them so I finally picked one up yesterday on sale ta boot.

As for help with the plants ...I'm not the best as I am still learning myself but ya know these Texans sure do know them and will help ya out


Phyllis

Well, here's some more then!

and another gardenia bloom for all the gardenia lovers!

Hello, everyone!
Today I'm celebrating a month of being in El Paso. Let me sum up this month's happenings:
I kinda got used with the heat. I'm just ignoring the outside thermometers whenever I see one.
Who said it doesn't rain in El Paso? It rained 3 times already! only 5-10 minutes, barely humidifying the soil surface, but it does. How do you know how many inches of rain fell on the ground? We got used with watering the lawn. But we're not spoiling it, just once a week, deep watering.
We figured out how on earth the swamp air conditioning works. It wasn't enough to turn it on from the button. We were supposed to turn on the water too... So it wasn't broken, and the cooling until then was mainly the temperature difference between night and day. Oh, well...
I bought 3 lip balms, that I've used the first week of being here. Now I just have them sitting around in the house. My husband really got used with the weather, he played volleyball and soccer outside with his colleagues.
I only killed 5 plants since I got here, which is surprising. More surprising is that 3 of them were roses, and one was a lavender. I think I am the worst gardener ever. Hopefully I'll improve with time. In the meantime, I bought myself a golden barrel cactus, to decrease the odds. Now, I wonder, with ALL THIS RAIN, will it survive? I also bought a book about Southwest gardening, and read 2 more. This doesn't mean that I'll not try growing whatever in the "wrong" zone...
I am amazed at how many blue flowers Texas has, especially since it's said that blue is a rare color for flowers.
I've seen humming birds for the first time in my life! They are wonderful and extremely speedy. Someone has a pic in PF with a hummer at a chaste tree. How did he/she take that photo?
I've also seen some huge bees (about 1 inch) and some crazy bees, that chopped and chomped almost all the leaves of my 7 (at that time) roses (remember, 3 of them...).
I stopped drinking 3 mugs of coffee a day. Now I'm at just one. Apparently my body refuses more coffee if it's too dry outside.
The parts of El Paso I've seen so far have a unique charm. I'll show you in a bit. But first, here's my new baby. We named it "slurping soup" (this is the rough translation from Romanian)!

thru the neighborhood

some areas are really coquette!

same here!

scenic El Paso

and another

Alexandra,

Happy one month!

I thought Lavender loved heat. We don't water ours at all and they are thriving. I planted them where no sprinklers were watering and they are happy as clams. Everything else I plant, I have to make sure I can get water to it.

Love your pics since I have only driven through El Paso and not really seen it. Which house is yours?

Pam

Hy, Pam!
I thought the same thing about lavender! especially since I've killed about 5 in Miami because of the humidity (not overwatering). I guess it was too young to put it in full sun already. This just makes me nuts, but I'll try again! It just played with my ambition!
My house is not there yet. I'll let you know.

Mural paintings somewhere in the south-east? part of El Paso. It's a historic district, we were just passing by in the car

Happy 1 month Goofy.....High Country Gardens,, get their catalog and you will find all kinds of wonderful plants that love desert gardeners! Forget the Lavendar.......think Lantana!

"eyes"

This message was edited Jul 3, 2008 11:38 AM

downtown

What do you mean, you house isn't there yet...where are ya staying...in a cave? LOL.

"eyes"

Hello, Eyes, I missed you!
I have an issue with this lavender. It went thru generations. My Grandma tried several times. My Mom loved the lavender, and she never succeded either. Looking back, I know she gave them too much water. NOW IT"S MY TURN! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

still downtown

Lovely pictures Alexandra, it looks like you are going to have a lot of fun living there.
Josephine.

you funny!

here's the house. It's not as nice as the ones I showed you so far. And it will probably not turn to anything spectacular either, unless we buy (we rent right now). I need to get me a rich hubby LOL!

a nice view of the mountains (it's towards the east, so I think it's part of Franklin Mountain)

the back yard, nothing spectacular. I counted, there are 7 plants there, 3 of them being prickly pear cactus

Thanks, Josephine! I hope so too.

The landlord cares about the lawn, so very little wiggly room for something else, only close to the stone fences.
The chaste tree (it tempts the hummers and those huge bees I was telling you about)

a bee in the chaste tree (hmph, I'm a poet too!)

the only shaded area in the backyard is provided by this (unidentified so far) bush/tree

Hello again Alexandra. Glad to have that first month behind you I am sure. Moving and unpacking isn't fun.
What is the red blooming I see through the Chaste tree? A Crape Myrtle maybe? Odd that they would plant something so close, I bet a bird dropped a seed there.
Nice house, but I wouldn't envy you dealing with the rocks in front if you bought it.

This message was edited Jul 3, 2008 12:05 PM

my poor babies, in the shaded patio. They will need some arranging, and now that I assume they either got used with it (dry heat) or lost it, I guess I can groom them, and move them, most of them probably to bigger pots.

Nice that you have an area that you can keep them and gets lots of light. Some shelves, hooks, plants stands and you're home

Ooooo..."eyes" sees a blank canvas, the shade of that NOID tree looks like a good place for some caladiums for color....and boy do they love the heat! Agastasche and Butterfly weed too....lots of salvia...hmmn...watch out for those cacti and yuccas. I believe that alot of the mecanthus love dry heat, too. And honey, my all time favorite, Tall Ruella, Mexican Petunia.

"eyes"