[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Madelaine Amee

To anyone reading this - these are just my personal opinions and are how I handle gardening in this zone/climate, suggest everyone experiments in their own yards. Also, please remember, the annuals on sale in the stores now are grown here in South Florida for our climate.

Florida winter annuals are basically your northern spring time annuals. Look at this climate here (8b-9b) as being an almost complete reversal of gardening up North. Our fall here is like your early May/June weather, cool at night with plenty of dew and warm summer days. I grow Snapdragons, the low growing type - up North I grew the gorgeous tall ones, here they are inclined to fall over, so I stick with the low spreading ones. Petunias. Annual Salvias, basically any annual you find in the store. I grow my herbs in pots on my patio, and start them at this time of the year, and next summer they will be tired and need replacing.

I would suggest two reference books - Month-by-Month Gardening in Florida - written by Tom MacCubbin who is a Floridian; and The Southern Living Garden Book. The month by month gardening book is excellent, as the name suggests he tells you what to plant and also how to garden in Florida by the month - great book. The Southern Living Garden Book is a publication listing just about every plant you could imagine, how to grow, climate, zone etc. If you go over to Barnes & Noble you can sit and read them there to see if they are of any use to you before you purchase. Also, you can buy used on Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more.

This is all great info. Thanks so much, esp. about the part about what's spring up north is fall down here. I will be trying to find those books used online.