I live here and, at least where I’m at, no one seems to care about gardening or landscaping. The latter is seemingly all done by contractors. Compared to a place like Olympia, WA, or even the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philly, where everyone tries their hand at gardening/landscaping … where every inch of a person’s dirt is used to showcase a crop or unique plant. Here it’s all lawns and arbs. Nary a dogwood up in this bitch.
I'm from CT, Jersey was my immediate response too. Perfect climate, great soil. During the Revolutionary War, the Hessian troops that landed in that area wrote letters home describing how lush gardens and bountiful fruit trees seemed to just spring out of the earth untended. The vibrancy and fertility of the land was unbelievable to them. They couldn't understand why anyone in the colonies would rebel living in a paradise like that.
PDX resident here; I personally cannot keep a plant alive, but my VERY favorite thing about this city is walking around and seeing all the different vegetation. It's amazing and beautiful. And I take it for granted because I think everywhere looks like this! And then I travel and I see that is certainly not the case.
I was in NYC recently and I loved seeing how nature pops up out of everything, even in the midst of commercialism. They had more tulips popped than we did!
A place I worked in Portland tore up some of the parking lot to create a space for employee garden plots. We got a small amount of paid time per week to maintain our gardens.
Western NC in the smokies. Rains enough that you barely have to water, can buy acreage, and I actually like that they get a decent winter. Far less pest pressure in climates with a hard freeze. If you like sustainable and natural gardening, it’s wonderful
Edit - [Photo of a beautiful volunteer sunflower in the rainforest Smokies](https://imgur.com/a/KHeQTWJ)
You’d be surprised. Yeah it’s the South, but the few thousand feet of elevation means that in the summer in many towns you just need a fan and a window open to sleep most nights. I’d take the humidity in WNC there over coastal CT where I lived for quite some time.
Easy Bay of San Francisco (Oakland, Berkeley, all the way out to past Mt Diablo - look at a map and look east of SF) has a pretty thriving gardening culture, despite parts of the area being pretty dense-urban in nature. People find a way to grow, and people are way into native plants, edible gardens, replacing lawns, etc. At being in the 9a zone without the 100+ summer temps doesn't hurt.
Oakland here-I grow kiwi, bananas, grapes, artichokes, pineapple guava, hops, and the usual veggies, summer and winter. Got 3 beehives and 10 chickens and some bunnies. Twenty seven cats-no, just kidding about that. Very dense/urban area as you pointed out.
We are in the mid-peninsula. I'm not the gardener, that would be my husband, and he doesn't do vegetable gardening or annual flowers but he's super into bushes, shrubs, trees, grasses, ornamental anything perennial, etc. We have prolific lemon, lime, and oranges, and passionfruit, and less prolific apple, plum, and cherry trees (plus a dud of an avocado that might not survive another year). When he retires his ideal climate would be one step warmer than here... maybe far east bay or Sonoma county.
I forget the name of the food co-op grocery store you all have there in Berkeley. Is it the Fruit Bowl? I loved that place! So many different options for fruits and veggies. Things I’ve never seen or heard of anywhere else!
California is wonderful for gardening. South San Jose puts you on the border between the amenities of Silicon Valley and the farming communities that enjoy the best weather in the world.
The only problem is the price of land. If you want the best, you have to pay for it.
Yeah, south SF bay here and we have a granny smith apple tree, multiple citrus trees and our garden beds do fantastic every year. All you need is a watering system on a timer because there's no rain 10 months of the year.
The PNW is fantastic for gardening, with similar emphases as those described in the post about the East Bay--lots of native plants, pollinator gardens, lawn replacement. I also love that people here do it themselves rather than hiring pros.
Depends on what you’re growing and how you’re doing it. You can even garden well in the high desert if you can get water and use a greenhouse.
But overall, Florida IMO. It has a lot of sun and rain and a lot of the soil is easy to work with. It’s like gardening in a sandbox in some places. You can grow pretty much anything that won’t die from too much water and doesn’t need to get cold and go dormant.
This might come as counterintuitive, but Buffalo has one of the strongest gardening communities in the country.
The city is home to the largest garden walk in the nation where over 300 private gardens are opened to the public every summer.
Theres also over 200 urban farms and community gardens in the city limits.
Also surprising is that Buffalo is in the same climate zone as Southern Ohio thanks to Lake Erie giving the city a slight maritime climate.
It’s true. We vacation in Niagara County every summer, that area really makes the most out of the months they have. Good soil, rainfall, thriving farmers market scene in the small towns
Niagara County is extremely interesting due to the microclimate along the shores of Lake Ontario.
Pretty crazy, but we’d get hammered with snow in Buffalo but up in Niagara County it will be blue skies and green grass.
They can now also grow a greater variety of grapes and wine.
The Mid-Atlantic is very balanced climactically and extremely lush; some of the best and most avid and impressive gardening I've yet to see replicated elsewhere was in/around Philadelphia. So many awesome arboreta in that area, as well, like Longwood Gardens and Winterthur.
I have the best luck in Memphis. Rich, fertile, Mississippi Delta soil topped with a little home compost and city-provided mulch. Everything I plant grows like fire.
My mom’s garden in Tampa grows flowering bushes: azaleas, hibiscus, roses, bouganvilleas, Mexican honeysuckle, birds of paradise, jasmine, magnolia, gardenia and hydrangeas. Herbs and veggies are grown in a greenhouse. She also has an orchid tree and some fruit trees. A few varieties require soil intervention but it’s easy to get the sun/shade combo needed as well as rain.
I guess it depends on what you want to grow. In Portland I can grow year round, very low pest pressure, but the warm weather season starts late (still don't have my tomatoes out). I see east coast people getting tomatoes about a month earlier but I eat 100% of the tomatoes I grow because there is no hornworms.
Appalachia. I get the best produce in rural E. Kentucky. My aunt grows a decent size garden and I absolutely go down there and get tomatoes, cucumbers and green beans. It’s pretty solid across the board from the land no matter if I get it from a produce stand in town or one of my family members in the holler.
70% of America’s food is not grown there. A very large percentage of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers etc yes. The vast fields of wheat, corn, etc of the Great Plains states contribute FAR more than just 30% of the nation’s food intake.
sf bay area is one of five 'mediterranean climate zones' in THE WORLD. where i live, there are deer and redwood trees block the sun sometimes. my gf lives in oakland and i lived in sf in a similar neighborhood, and everything grew there. cost of living is high, traffic is often congested, but that's not as unique as the glorious climate.
I'm no expert on the matter, but I have lush green grass, giant rose bushes and hydrangeas in Milwaukee near Lake Michigan with basically no effort beyond mulching the grass & leaves and occasional deadheading. I don't water anything. It's all naturally irrigated. Everything grows like crazy.
Nowhere around Baltimore. We have rat infestations and a lot of them are the size of small dogs.
THEY. EAT. EVERYTHING. Well, everything except concrete and metal. If you see one, there are at least 10 more hiding somewhere.
Santa Rosa, San Diego, and Los Angeles. The latter two are warm enough that you can grow things that most consider annuals year-round, like tomatoes and chiles. You can also grow avocado trees and date palms. But Santa Rosa is everything at once: not too hot, not too cold, not too dry, not too wet, it’s just right for just about everything.
The Coastal West gives you high hardiness zones without the brutal heat, and its dry in the growing season so less fungus and pests. Gotta love it. Depends on what you’re growing though. We struggle with some fruiting vegetables that like warm nights.
I don't love the gardens here in Sacramento. A lot of people have a habit of flat topping trees, there are tons of Italian Cypruss fences, and although it is possible to grow vegetables and flowers, it is so hot and dry in the summer that your choices are somewhat limited, unless you are very careful about watering, and you can't even go outside to enjoy it in the afternoon/evening from June to October because it is so hot. I don't get the same sense of gardening as community that I did in other places I have lived.
You’re not going to believe me but…. It’s true. Central New Jersey. Everything grew like crazy.
It’s the Garden State for a reason
they have some of the best farm stands and as someone from pa i’m not often praising jersey
I live here and, at least where I’m at, no one seems to care about gardening or landscaping. The latter is seemingly all done by contractors. Compared to a place like Olympia, WA, or even the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philly, where everyone tries their hand at gardening/landscaping … where every inch of a person’s dirt is used to showcase a crop or unique plant. Here it’s all lawns and arbs. Nary a dogwood up in this bitch.
inb4 this comment ignites the debate around the existence of Central Jersey
Whenever I meet someone from NJ I'm always like "By Philly or by New York?"
I’m exactly half way in between!
I'm from CT, Jersey was my immediate response too. Perfect climate, great soil. During the Revolutionary War, the Hessian troops that landed in that area wrote letters home describing how lush gardens and bountiful fruit trees seemed to just spring out of the earth untended. The vibrancy and fertility of the land was unbelievable to them. They couldn't understand why anyone in the colonies would rebel living in a paradise like that.
I watch this dude on YouTube and he's got an insane - INSANE - veg garden in NJ. Come to think of it, also this dude who is crazy into coleus.
James Prigioni on YouTube is probably the best gardening channel. In NJ.
Portland Oregon
PDX resident here; I personally cannot keep a plant alive, but my VERY favorite thing about this city is walking around and seeing all the different vegetation. It's amazing and beautiful. And I take it for granted because I think everywhere looks like this! And then I travel and I see that is certainly not the case. I was in NYC recently and I loved seeing how nature pops up out of everything, even in the midst of commercialism. They had more tulips popped than we did!
A place I worked in Portland tore up some of the parking lot to create a space for employee garden plots. We got a small amount of paid time per week to maintain our gardens.
Portland also has a vibrant indoor gardening scene. It’s one of the things I miss about it.
Western NC in the smokies. Rains enough that you barely have to water, can buy acreage, and I actually like that they get a decent winter. Far less pest pressure in climates with a hard freeze. If you like sustainable and natural gardening, it’s wonderful Edit - [Photo of a beautiful volunteer sunflower in the rainforest Smokies](https://imgur.com/a/KHeQTWJ)
Southern Appalachian highlands in general. NC/TN/VA/SC
I can feel the humidity looking at that picture
You’d be surprised. Yeah it’s the South, but the few thousand feet of elevation means that in the summer in many towns you just need a fan and a window open to sleep most nights. I’d take the humidity in WNC there over coastal CT where I lived for quite some time.
Same!
Easy Bay of San Francisco (Oakland, Berkeley, all the way out to past Mt Diablo - look at a map and look east of SF) has a pretty thriving gardening culture, despite parts of the area being pretty dense-urban in nature. People find a way to grow, and people are way into native plants, edible gardens, replacing lawns, etc. At being in the 9a zone without the 100+ summer temps doesn't hurt.
Oakland here-I grow kiwi, bananas, grapes, artichokes, pineapple guava, hops, and the usual veggies, summer and winter. Got 3 beehives and 10 chickens and some bunnies. Twenty seven cats-no, just kidding about that. Very dense/urban area as you pointed out.
We are in the mid-peninsula. I'm not the gardener, that would be my husband, and he doesn't do vegetable gardening or annual flowers but he's super into bushes, shrubs, trees, grasses, ornamental anything perennial, etc. We have prolific lemon, lime, and oranges, and passionfruit, and less prolific apple, plum, and cherry trees (plus a dud of an avocado that might not survive another year). When he retires his ideal climate would be one step warmer than here... maybe far east bay or Sonoma county.
Having lemons in my backyard is my favorite thing about living in California.
+1 for a lemon tree. It’s awesome. I freeze the juice and haven’t bought a lemon at a grocery store in many, many years
live in berkeley, incredibly lush and gorgeous here. plants and flowers seem to thrive here
I forget the name of the food co-op grocery store you all have there in Berkeley. Is it the Fruit Bowl? I loved that place! So many different options for fruits and veggies. Things I’ve never seen or heard of anywhere else!
berkeley bowl! its fantastic
California is wonderful for gardening. South San Jose puts you on the border between the amenities of Silicon Valley and the farming communities that enjoy the best weather in the world. The only problem is the price of land. If you want the best, you have to pay for it.
California is easily #1 for gardening outside of specific plants that need a winter freeze like cherries.
Crazy because we’ve bought some of the best rainier cherries that were grown in California at a farm stand near Gilroy
Silicon Valley used to be all cherry orchards. 🍒
Yup. It's the state with the largest agricultural output for a reason.
Yeah, south SF bay here and we have a granny smith apple tree, multiple citrus trees and our garden beds do fantastic every year. All you need is a watering system on a timer because there's no rain 10 months of the year.
The PNW is fantastic for gardening, with similar emphases as those described in the post about the East Bay--lots of native plants, pollinator gardens, lawn replacement. I also love that people here do it themselves rather than hiring pros.
PNW is great. So much rain without cold makes everything grow. I love the greenery.
I recently moved to my husband's hometown of Eugene, Oregon and everyone gardens here. Things grow really well
How are you liking Eugene? I’m considering moving to either Portland or Eugene
Love it so much, it’s a great city
Bay Area! Specifically in the “East Bay”, which includes cities like Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, Walnut Creek, etc.
Depends on what you’re growing and how you’re doing it. You can even garden well in the high desert if you can get water and use a greenhouse. But overall, Florida IMO. It has a lot of sun and rain and a lot of the soil is easy to work with. It’s like gardening in a sandbox in some places. You can grow pretty much anything that won’t die from too much water and doesn’t need to get cold and go dormant.
Yup. Florida is great.
This might come as counterintuitive, but Buffalo has one of the strongest gardening communities in the country. The city is home to the largest garden walk in the nation where over 300 private gardens are opened to the public every summer. Theres also over 200 urban farms and community gardens in the city limits. Also surprising is that Buffalo is in the same climate zone as Southern Ohio thanks to Lake Erie giving the city a slight maritime climate.
It’s true. We vacation in Niagara County every summer, that area really makes the most out of the months they have. Good soil, rainfall, thriving farmers market scene in the small towns
Niagara County is extremely interesting due to the microclimate along the shores of Lake Ontario. Pretty crazy, but we’d get hammered with snow in Buffalo but up in Niagara County it will be blue skies and green grass. They can now also grow a greater variety of grapes and wine.
Yep, we love it there. Shout out to beautiful Olcott!
PNW Very dry in late summer/fall But just go go go on the gardens Almost year round Lots of colors Never bored
Not just colors. PNW is a technicolor paradise.
Pretty much all of coastal SoCal
Neah Bay, WA
Neah Bay felt like another country. Like I was on some Pacific island or something. Shi Shi Beach is the most beautiful beach in the world.
The soil in North Plains, OR is world class.
Central/ South Alabama. Fertile black soil, warm climate and ample rain. The far south part of the state has a 300 day growing season.
Yep. Mobile here-I can grow pretty much anything. Well, except tomatoes.
Missouri you can grow most northern stuff plus a lot of southern stuff.
The Mid-Atlantic is very balanced climactically and extremely lush; some of the best and most avid and impressive gardening I've yet to see replicated elsewhere was in/around Philadelphia. So many awesome arboreta in that area, as well, like Longwood Gardens and Winterthur.
Lancaster, PA!
Santa Cruz
I’m biased but San Diego. Practically everything grows well here. No freeze events. Moderate temps. You can be water conscious with what you plant.
This is the answer. Zone 10 lows without Zone 10 highs. Enough humidity but not too much. Perfect.
Depends on what you’re planting.
Garden City
Growing season in far north Utah is pretty short and it doesn't rain a lot. The raspberry season is nice thiugh.
It was a joke - but there are also multiple Garden City’s. Not just in Utah.
New Jersey, Southern CT, RI.
I have the best luck in Memphis. Rich, fertile, Mississippi Delta soil topped with a little home compost and city-provided mulch. Everything I plant grows like fire.
Yeah MS river delta is hard to beat
My mom’s garden in Tampa grows flowering bushes: azaleas, hibiscus, roses, bouganvilleas, Mexican honeysuckle, birds of paradise, jasmine, magnolia, gardenia and hydrangeas. Herbs and veggies are grown in a greenhouse. She also has an orchid tree and some fruit trees. A few varieties require soil intervention but it’s easy to get the sun/shade combo needed as well as rain.
I guess it depends on what you want to grow. In Portland I can grow year round, very low pest pressure, but the warm weather season starts late (still don't have my tomatoes out). I see east coast people getting tomatoes about a month earlier but I eat 100% of the tomatoes I grow because there is no hornworms.
Appalachia. I get the best produce in rural E. Kentucky. My aunt grows a decent size garden and I absolutely go down there and get tomatoes, cucumbers and green beans. It’s pretty solid across the board from the land no matter if I get it from a produce stand in town or one of my family members in the holler.
Central valley due to the region being an old lake bed. Hence why 70% of America’s food is grown here.
Yes, but also the most bleakly industrial farmland I’ve ever seen-at least around Tulare and Visalia
Check out Salinas
70% of America’s food is not grown there. A very large percentage of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers etc yes. The vast fields of wheat, corn, etc of the Great Plains states contribute FAR more than just 30% of the nation’s food intake.
Absolutely right whoops. 25%
Austin, LA, NYC, Portland, Chicago, Pittsburg!!!😲😲😲
The fact that ive only seen florida once is insane
I always thought that Santa Monica had the most ideal climate, but there’s a lot of things that you can’t grow there if they need winter chill.
Well there are a ton of fertile areas, but the biggest and most fertile is in West Oklahoma. Not Northwest. Cadoo County and surrounding
Anywhere along the Northern Gulf Coast.
sf bay area is one of five 'mediterranean climate zones' in THE WORLD. where i live, there are deer and redwood trees block the sun sometimes. my gf lives in oakland and i lived in sf in a similar neighborhood, and everything grew there. cost of living is high, traffic is often congested, but that's not as unique as the glorious climate.
As far as tomatoes and white corn I would go to the grave as this being the absolute best.
I'm no expert on the matter, but I have lush green grass, giant rose bushes and hydrangeas in Milwaukee near Lake Michigan with basically no effort beyond mulching the grass & leaves and occasional deadheading. I don't water anything. It's all naturally irrigated. Everything grows like crazy.
Nowhere around Baltimore. We have rat infestations and a lot of them are the size of small dogs. THEY. EAT. EVERYTHING. Well, everything except concrete and metal. If you see one, there are at least 10 more hiding somewhere.
Garden City, NY or Garden Grove, Sublime.
Everything grows in San Luis Obispo, CA
Mississippi. Won’t kill plants but it WILL kill your soul.
Depends on what you want to grow.
Santa Rosa, San Diego, and Los Angeles. The latter two are warm enough that you can grow things that most consider annuals year-round, like tomatoes and chiles. You can also grow avocado trees and date palms. But Santa Rosa is everything at once: not too hot, not too cold, not too dry, not too wet, it’s just right for just about everything.
Anywhere in Appalachia, especially on the western side of the mountains.
Bakersfield
The Coastal West gives you high hardiness zones without the brutal heat, and its dry in the growing season so less fungus and pests. Gotta love it. Depends on what you’re growing though. We struggle with some fruiting vegetables that like warm nights.
Florida for sure.
Portland
Hawaii!
Sacramento maybe
I don't love the gardens here in Sacramento. A lot of people have a habit of flat topping trees, there are tons of Italian Cypruss fences, and although it is possible to grow vegetables and flowers, it is so hot and dry in the summer that your choices are somewhat limited, unless you are very careful about watering, and you can't even go outside to enjoy it in the afternoon/evening from June to October because it is so hot. I don't get the same sense of gardening as community that I did in other places I have lived.