Moving up your way.

Hi,
I've just found out that I'll be moving to the Columbia area very soon. Could someone please tell me what the soil conditions are like there? I'll be bringing a couple hundred daylilies with me.

Can you grow peonies? Hosta?

Thanks so much,

Leslie

Well, there is clay. Red Clay. Yellow Clay. Brown clay. Reddish brown clay. Yellowish red clay. And clay shale. Oh, and mudstone, which is what clay is made of.
And sand.

The good news is, if you are potter you are in luck!



Actually, it is not that bad. I have become best friends with pelleted gypsum and pine fines (finely ground pine bark). Both of those do a pretty good job of breaking up the clay.
I will take you out for coffee when you get here!

Hi,
Thanks! I'd like that. Do you happen to know about good areas in which to live, and garden? We're looking at Irmo and District 5 schools.

Hey, that's my neighborhood!
Excellent school district, some great bargains on homes. Now is a buyer's market.
If you need a Realtor I have a friend, or I can pick up the local realtor ads and mail them to you if you wish.
I can give you the lowdown on the different neighborhoods if you like. Lived here for 20+ years.
What age schoolchildren do you have? Mine are 20 and 24, no longer kids, but now living at home while going to college. My husband is a prfessor at the university of SC and the Scoutmaster for Troop 91.
Most all of the schools are good in this district.

I have never grown peonies but many in my garden club do. Daylilies love it here. And lots of hostas grow here, too.

OK, hostas and peonies are worth giving up my native state! I'll send you a d-mail.

If you get the earliest blooming peonies and plant them with the crown completely exposed so they get some cold they should do fine. Columbia is cooler than Maitland in the winter but you will probably find it is hotter in the summer and that is what the peonies do not like.

Hotter in the summer? Ack!

Leslie (love your name since it also belongs to one of my daughters)
Our son and his family live in Chapin which is about ? 10-12 miles out of Columbia off of Interstate 26. They chose this area because of Lake Murray and the school system for our two granddaughters ages 4 and 8. He works for GE in Columbia and she is Youth Director for the Methodist Church in Chapin. They love the area. There are several residentual areas that surround Lake Murray which is a hugh lake that is a part of Chapin. I think you may be better satisfied with the outer areas of Columbia.
Here is a link to Chapin, SC. Good luck and we welcome you to SC.

http://www.chapinsc.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7BFDEEB64D-3AC0-4EC9-AAEC-52211FB0EC6E%7D

This message was edited May 18, 2009 10:21 PM

This message was edited May 18, 2009 10:22 PM

BSD, does that stand for Blue Screen of Death???? Common term in the windows world.

Leslie, I live about an hour and a half from Columbia, The soil for me is "Red Clay" .. Some Compost and tilliing will give you some nice soil for Hosta's, Peonies. And "your Favorites" Daylillys! I have all three and they do fine!

Thanks all. We're looking at Chapin, Irmo, etc. That general area.

I have many hostas, but for some reason I cannot get peonies to grow. But then, I have just started having luck with irises....daylilies are my fave, as LaLamb knows. ;-)

Lake Murray is nice, I have a friend who lives there.

No Core, not that. Just my initials. Just think of what it was before I married !!
BS is bad......

LOL. Make a nice license plate.

Did anyone see the lady on the news who got her plate taken away. She loved Tofu. I think her plate said ILVTOFU. LOL> I guess people read it a different way and complained to the DMV. It took me a minute or two to figure out what was wrong with that. I've never been good at figuring out vanity plates.

core only you would see that part of the news LOL acronyms...it's a lifestyle it seems nowawdays

LaLambchop - my parents lived in Cape Coral for 20 yrs and retired here 5 yrs ago - they say the summers are better here so thought I'd toss that in there - but i'll warn ya...it's a whole nother world here in the midlands...but the folks around here are all what southern hospitality is about....I loved it enough to move here myself (grew up in NY and lived in IN for nearly 18 yrs...wait I'm giving away my age...I lived in IN for 8 yrs ...yea 8 years) welcome to our neck o the woods and if happen to be in this area June 13th we are having a roundup in Newberry (30 miles north of Columbia)

D

Wow. I feel welcome already. I'm a native southerner so I can get all over the hospitality. I'm looking forward to meeting you all and learning to garden there. Almost 2 zones different since I'm currently in 9b.

Hi Leslie,

I'm a Florida transplant myself .. grew up in Ft. Lauderdale and spent 20 years in Gainesville area. If you are planning to bring plants with you, look them up in Plant Files and see if they are suited to your zone. The soil here is a bit tricky, but I always plant thing in the ground with a buffer of good soil so the plants can grow a good root system before they the clayey stuff. The main problem with the soil here is percolation. Water tends to stand around after rains. The karst topgraphy in N Central Florida was great .. never any standing water.

Core, BSOD is blue screen of death .. used to send shivers down your spine back in the olden days when dirt was a mountain.

X

by the way - you can't grow many irises in FL, but in SC they are great! there's a park near Fort Sumptner, I've heard, that is a mass of Japanese iris bloom around Memorial Day.

Same name, different parts of the state. The Iris Gardens are in the town of Sumter, about 30 minutes from Columbia.

Fort Sumter is a small island in Charleston harbor.

ya know, I would have ended up on the coast. THANK YOU. heard about it from the ensata.com fellas and I'm soooo glad you corrected me!

all the better for LaLambchop, as she can go check it out easily!

well everything is better on the coast, right?

love those SC beaches....

The Iris Festival is this weekend in Sumter....I am thinking I may visit...I need to get away for a day.

someone told me they sell some of those irises at the festival?