Hi from Québec

Hi! I just joined last night (early this morning, actually :-); pretty busy outside these days but had to come inside just now to cool off. I can't WAIT to stay in touch with everyone & everything on this site throughout our long winter. In the meantime if there are any hints on dealing with iris borer, I'd be all ears! Cheers,
Shannon

Hello Shannon!!! Welcome to DG! You will love this place and there is so much to learn from all the wonderful people here! Happy Gardening!

Hi Shannon! I'm so glad to see you here! Welcome to Dave's Garden! What kind of plants/flowers are you interested in growing? I'm sure you can find tons of friends here. I'd love to get to know you better. I'm in Georgia, so I don't think we can grow too many of the same plants, but that doesn't matter at all. Glad to see you here.

Carmen

Hi Shannon,

Hope you enjoy your time in Daves Garden. It is a great place for so many reasons....friends, entertainment, trading, sharing, and the list goes on, but most important...we are family and we care about each other. I'm so glad you are here and are one of the family. Have fun!!

Shirley

Hi Carmen, Shirley and Brinda - thank you so much for the personal notes! It really speaks to the sense of community here. After I've been at DG for a while I'm going to make a point of visiting the Welcome Mat and saying hi to new folks; it's such a nice feeling!

In answer to your question Carmen, I'm still experimenting...we bought our house a couple of years ago so are just now getting a sense of what could work in the yard. I'm looking for plants native to our region and ones that don't need much water, but will also go for something totally impractical if I like the looks of it! I recently planted some pink astilbe, so am hoping they bloom next year. On the annual side, we've enjoyed having red sunflowers - they're relatively unusual around here. Also, I've picked up from my mother the idea of planting flowers in & around the vegetable garden; nothing fancy, just some typical annuals like sweet peas, snapdragons, deep purple violas...it really makes tending the weeds more enjoyable.

A colleague and I spent a week in Georgia a few years ago, for work - we stayed at Fort Gordon, in the Augusta area. I really enjoyed my time in the region and have been intending to take a holiday in Georgia ever since. What types of plants do you like to grow, where you are?

All the best to everyone,
Shannon

welcome to your new york neighbor. enjoy the site

Welcome to Dave's Shannon from Sunny Saskatchewan! :) Please come and introduce yourself in the Canadian forum as well!

Hi Shannon....from this old lady in "but it's a dry heat" Arizona!! You will make so many new friends here...you'll need a new note book to keep them all in. Join us in chat on Tuesday nights (7 PM EDT)...and on Thurs mornings..7 AM EDT...you'll see the two smiley faces on the page when you sign in...click there and join the fun. Jo

Hi Herbie43, Lilypon and Jo - thanks so much for the personal notes; it's really great to be so warmly welcomed into a community. Jo, as a native of the Canadian prairies I can really identify with the "dry heat" that you mentioned. Although, I think you have us beat on the heat scale! We can say "but it's a dry cold..." instead :-)

When I first moved to the Ottawa area, I found the humidity almost unbearable, & missed the dry air of the west. However, each place has its ups and downs, eh?
I will definitely check out the chat times when I get the chance; thanks for the tip. Best wishes to everyone.
~Shannon

Hi Shannon
Welcome from Pakistan , hope you will enjoy here , very loving and caring members are here , if you need any kind of help plants regarding , dont hesitate ,just post in DG and you will receive many suggestions from other members

Hi gumlla,

Thanks for your message. If I remember correctly, Pakistan is 9 hours ahead of eastern North America, so it must be...11:00 in the morning for you! (I'm up late this evening)

In which part of Pakistan is Mirpur?

Yes it is a very friendly community here. It's only been 24 hours for me and already I feel at home, everyone has been so nice.

I look forward to hearing from you and everyone else in the months to come. Best regards,
Shannon

Welcome from Oklahoma. I know you'll love it here. Everyone is so nice.

Enjoy!

Shannon
Mirpur is near to Islamabad . Yes we are 9 hour ahead from you ......You are living in zone 5a , very cold area ,tell us the life in your area, how people live there.

Gumlla
Shannon will be unavailable for a week. She's left Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and is on her way to Winnipeg, Manitoba and area. The place she's visiting doesn't have internet access.

Shannon, Bonjour de Californie, welcome to Dave's, great place, great people, I already feel like I know so many people in such a short time, and so will you. Wer'e all here to help one another, and to share our loves from gardening, to pets, to recipes, and so much more.

Welcome, Shannon!

If you post on the Iris Forum you may find an answer about iris borers.

Hi again, Lilypon, Gumlla, smiln32, hanna1 and darius...thanks for the warm welcome.
Lilypon, thanks for telling Gumlla I'd be away...I got ahead of myself trying to follow too many threads, and lost track of where I was. Hi Gumlla; 5a is cold compared to much of the world, but still warm compared to parts of Canada and Alaska... we do have cold winters, and the snow is very heavy and difficult to shovel off the sidewalk. I'll post a picture of it in January! What zone would your home be equivalent to?
In answer to your question Gumlla,
Gatineau is across the river from Ottawa, Ontario. Officially they are two different cities in two different provinces, but it's like one city, of about a million people; many people live on one side and work on the other. There are also some cultural and linguistic differences between the two sides of the river, because of the different history of the two provinces and the different official languages (most people in Ontario speak English, and most in Québec speak French). A lot of people in Ottawa/Gatineau speak both languages, and of course there are many Canadians who have immigrated from all over the world, who speak their own language as well. It can be really interesting!
I have seen some of your photos of the area where you live...it looks beautiful! Looking forward to seeing some more sometime, whenever you have a chance. I'll check your Kaleem from Pakistan thread.

Cheers to everyone,
Shannon

Welcome shannon, Hope you had a good time on your trip.aI have been in Quebcec a long time ago. Did enjoy seeing the area. Here where I live about 25 miles south of the Canadian border in north central Wash., it is zone 5 mostly, occasionally we have a zone 6 winter. Today is I hope the last of our very hot weather. I had to take my Bluebird dog, she is a 5 year old Lhasa Apso, down to Omak, 25 miles south to be boarded for the week I am going to be gone. Three friends and I are going on the Amsterdam cruise ship on the inside passage to Alaska. There are four states I have not been in and Alaska is one , so after tomorrow there will only be three and they are on the east coast. It was 109 degrees in Omak when I took Blue to the Vets When I got back home thankgoodness only 103. I am trying to get my 2 1/5 acres of garden as wet as I can so maybe, the fellow who works for me when I can afford it and he has time, will be able to keep the garden from burning up. Still supposed to be in 90s the whole week while I am gone. I really hate to be away when it is so hot. Donna

Hi Donna,
Hope your trip to Alaska was great! I saw the port of Skagway, AK a few years ago, when I was working in Whitehorse (Yukon Territory). It's absolutely beautiful. Hope your puppy dog manages the boarding experience ok! It seems that in general dogs have an easier time of it than cats, but it probably depends on the individual. Friends of mine have a large, gregarious dog who just loves being boarded. Good luck with the garden,
All the best,
Shannon

Welcome to DG's, Shannon, my garden spot is located in the high desert red rock canyon area of Utah. Waay different from yours.... But I spent 20 years in the Adirondack mtns of New York, so know your climate conditions. This is where I stopped when I was running away from the snow. happy posting... Blooms

Hi Blooms,
I bet the scenery is beautiful where you are! Nice, dry air... coming from Alberta, I've found the humidity here a bit of a challenge. On the other hand, we're not having a drought here this year, whereas I've heard that it's been particularly bad in the west. Hope the rains come for you soon.
All the best,
Shannon

Want to see the pictures of your area in winters and in summer.

Will do!
I know two other people from Pakistan: one who left Karachi 20 years ago to come to Canada, and one who currently lives in a rural village in the Peshawar region. But yours are the first photos I've seen of the scenery...thanks for posting them!

Hi, although I have been a DG member for several months, I just found the 'Welcome Mat'.

I want to let all the members and the DG staff know how helpful all the information is that you share and how happy I am that I subscribed. We moved this year from LA to Cincinnati, and the PDB, the forums and the Garden Watchdog have been invaluable resources for us. The photos everyone posts are wonderful--so many beautiful gardens to emulate! Thank you very much. T.

As a recent arrival, I couldn't agree more! The whole thing is just great. I wonder if there's a more widely-read forum or thread for your thank-you message to be read, should you be interested - ? I'll have to defer to the advice of more experienced DG-ers on this one, though! All the best,
Shannon

spklatt
Thats good , you have met with two Pakistanis already , and with third one in DG. Still waiting the pictures,

Yes, spklatt, I mis-posted my 'thankyou' and re-posted it where I think maybe it's supposed to be! Anyway, I'm not from Canada, nor from Pakistan, but I'm still happy to be a member! Welcome and Enjoy. T.

Hi Shannon, I remember sailing up the St. Lawrence River and docking in Quebec on this glorious morning in late October l960, had never seen blue skies like it in my life, a real chill in the air, but blue skies and sunshine everywhere, what a thrill for us...the winter decended very quickly and my ''warm'' winter clothes I had taken from Enlgnad I almost froze in so we had to visit ''Pollacks"" department store to buy me a coat before I froze to death...the snow blizzards were something else too, I remember walking backwards in a particlarly bad blizzard [ my jaw had frozen] and we were completely lost until a kind motorist stopped and took us back to where we lived in a basement apartment where we had to dig ourselves in and out of the snow..for months...we eventualy moved on to British Columbia [ Victoria] but never forgot the friends we made or the places we saw in Quebec and Montreal...including the lovely Chateau Frontinaque,quite a lovely place indeed. [ can still remember some French but not how to spell it bon is good so I will just wish you a good evening in place of bonjour when you wake up ] marion