The PNW is great. I can tell you one thing though, the growing season is just that much longer in Willamette Valley. Some day I may be down there and being able to grow melons larger than golf balls!!!
Hi SilkieChix! Some years I can grow Alaska cantaloupe melons pretty well. Other years we have 3 weeks of cloud cover and cold rain in June and it bogs everything down. I have some garlic and green onions, and beets holding out in the garden now. The goats and chix seem to leave those things alone, mostly. The goats aren't really supposed to be in there, but they are a gang of Houdinis and they somehow manage to escape every so often. They work over the fence until they find/make a weak spot that they can climb, jump, or slither under...They have acres of pasture, but NO! They want to be near people. And my rosebushes, too, apparently.
I visited the Willamette Valley area back in 2000! Taught a pharmacy computer class at the hosptial there. It was an absolutely beautiful place! Looks like a very nice place to live if you can handle the cold! (love the warm climate here - downright hot, actually!!) Took a road trip before we left and drove over to the coast - breathtakingly beautiful and in such contrast to our coast - the Gulf of Mexico just doesn't compare in beauty.
Brenda, from my "objective" viewpoint 500 miles from the Willamette and a couple thousand from the Gulf of Mexico Im going to agree that the Oregon coast is "breathtakingly beautiful and in such contrast to our coast . . ." But, I've spent a few weeks in Corpus Christi and points south - absolutely lovely!
And, "cold," - sheeesh! Let's just take the huge metropolis of Oregon City as an example: Average daily temperature in January is 41F. From my vantage point 500 miles away, my average daily temperature this month is 28.3F. I have family near Enterprise in the NE corner of Oregon and not far from me: their normal daily January temperature will be 23.2F!!
To contrast those 41 degrees this month in Oregon City - - Dallas/Fort Worth's average daily temperature is 44.1F for January.
I do appreciate your appreciation of the Pacific Northwest, tho'.:bouquet And, I wish I had the deep fertile Willamette soil here in my very distant corner of the PNW. I'd also be willing for Silkiechicken and Mothergoat to send me a few clouds along about August . . .
OK, so I can whine to Brenda and the Texans here that 45 degrees and foggy is cold...But at least it's not raining today. We SHOULD have sent some of our rain over the mountains to you in early December, Steve. We had plenty to spare. Are you anywhere near the Hancock Field Station? I have some young OSU friends that have spent time out there.
When I figure out how to do Photobucket, I'll post a few pics of the neighborhood. I really do appreciate the beauty, climate and soil where I live, but I have to whine some or everyone would want to move here.
No Linda, I am much farther to the northeast. I'm waaaay beyond Fossil (but you suspected that anyway, didn't ya'. I'm past Walla Walla, north of the Snake and beyond.
My gardening is up here near Hauser Idaho and, actually, on both sides of the state line.
I'm not Brenda but your pictures are very, very pretty, Linda!
Lovely color to the lilies and I see some sweet wills amongst the Canterbury bells. I can remember having a few monkey flowers in an eastern exposure against the house one year. And, I can almost smell the salt air there on the beach. Nice!