Poll on Moving

In My Humble Opinion
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[QUOTE=twickster]
Like: I live in Zone 7, what can I grow? The Time-Life Complete Garden Guide has a bunch of charts (annuals, perennials, etc.) with columns for zones. I’ve got the huge honking one-volume version of this(and it’s a book I keep on my desk because I look at it often), but believe the individual sections have been published as separate volumes; it’s pp. 590-607 in my edition, “Plant Selection Guide.”
[/QUOTE]

That’s it!

My soil is extremely sandy, but has excellent organic content. I figure I’m good for just about anything that doesn’t require huge amounts of water, meaning that cypress grove I’ve always wanted is out of the question… :wink:

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The charts also have columns for “soil type.” You can also google “zone 7 plants” and see what you find. A third possibility – contact your local garden club, if there is one, or the cooperative extension office. Here’s a link for finding the latter: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/index.html

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[ol]
[li]How far, in miles, was your last move?[/li]About 2300 - New Jersey to the Bay Area.
[li]Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?[/li]Hired a mover. My new job paid.
[li]If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?[/li]Nothing significant, since we had them move both cars. Just enough to live on until the mover got there.
[li]If so, what? [/li][li]And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?[/li]1.
[li]Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.[/li][/ol]
That was our longest move. Our shortest move was from one side of a rental house to another. I was able to move my books from one attic to the other by handing them out the window. We got our friends to help move the furniture, and then had a party. Number of trips was very large. :slight_smile:

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How far, in miles, was your last move?

About four thousand, I moved to another continent.

Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?

We sold pretty much everything except what would fit in our car (which we brought with us), in our luggage allowance, and what was worth shipping ahead in boxes.

If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?

The people who shipped the car actually came and got it, which was nice.
And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?

Oh, I only want to do that once.

Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.

On the gardening front, my father moved his beloved raised beds in a pickup truck when he last moved, so I wouldn’t underestimate the dedication of a serious gardener. There is a firm in Atlanta called “Two men and a truck” and (as I recall) he hired, well, two men to help dig the beds up and put them in the truck and take them to the new digs where they still produce lovely produce. But he is the original organic gardener.

I container garden on a rooftop because I live in the middle of a city in Holland and this means No Dirt. I very roughly follow the methods of Square foot gardening (well, half meter since we moved) but I only use scavenged materials. The original reason for that was indeed so they could be discarded if we moved. My compost heap is also on the roof and consists of three wooden slat vegetable crates from the grocery store; my cold box is a discarded aquarium on its side (lettuce almost ready for harvest just now). The rest is half meter squares made of various materials on top of a tarp on top of pallets (for water runoff).

I want to try a tower next but Dearly Beloved fears for the weight on the roof. Hey, it’s a 400 year old house, I figure it can take it. But I may propose it for a project at my kids’ school in the interest of marital harmony. And for the free labor of course.

Free advice: when you move, just give up and grow what is native or adapted to the area. I have not yet suceeded in growing a real watermelon in Holland, even on the roof where I get sunlight all day. Not that I take my own advice you understand, I expect to try again this year. And also pumpkin, I think…

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How far, in miles, was your last move?
2000 miles.

Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?
Mover.

**If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself? If so, what? **
I moved early, and moved enough clothing, personal items, and housewares for an apartment for just myself for a few months. We also packed some boxes ourselves (critical items). The mover took care of everything else.

And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?
One move for me. Then the moving truck (and they moved our car). Finally, one move for my wife and son.

Any other info I should have remembered to ask about… How old were you, how long ago…
This was in '05, and my wife and I were approaching 40.

As for plants: moved out in winter, so esp. in New England, no plant maintenance to do before leaving. If it had been summer, we would not have added anything new or replanted any annuals, but would have trimmed neatly for the house sale. We did not move any house plants, but donated them to friends.

On arriving, we moved into a new house that needed a lot of landscaping (and still does). It is challenging because the climate and type of plants are different from both of the two places we’ve lived in in the past. We’re trying to put in a lot of greenery that doesn’t take much water and can take the heat and the dry.

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  1. How far, in miles, was your last move? 284 miles, according to Mapquest. About a 5 1/2 hour drive

    1. Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover? His new job paid for a moving company.

    2. If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself? yes

    3. If so, what? We moved ourselves, an overnight bag each, all 4 critters, the booze, cleaning supplies, and some pictures I couldn’t find an appropriate-sized box for.

    4. And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move? One trip. There was nothing they wouldn’t move that we couldn’t fit into the cars that was worth driving 11 hours to come back for.

    5. Any other info I should have remembered to ask about. We actually planned to bring some potted plants with us, but the movers told us right as they were closing up the van that they weren’t allowed to take plants on an overnight move. We couldn’t fit them into either of the compact cars with all the critters and essentials, so I set them out on the patio and had one of my friends come get them. I was disappointed, but not nearly enough so to make another trip just for them. Make sure you remind people to check with their movers well in advance so they avoid such surprises.

Also, for long-distance moves you have to keep in mind that people often haven’t visited the new place tons of times at different times of day. The soil type and light patterns may or may not be suitable for the plants they’re intending to move.

In our case, our realtor suggested putting in some bright, pretty flowers in a few highly visible areas to help increase our curb appeal. Containers in that area would have been impractical and looked peculiar, so we went with low-cost annuals and a bunch of transplanted perennials from my mother’s garden. We weren’t out a bunch of money on the stuff we left behind, and we got a bunch more transplants from Mom this spring, so that worked out well for us.

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[ol]
[li]How far, in miles, was your last move?[/li][li]Did you “do-it-yourself” (with friends, obviously) or hire a mover?[/li][li]If you hired a mover, did you move any stuff yourself?[/li][li]If so, what? [/li][li]And how many trips’ worth? Were you going back and forth between the two places, or just take some stuff with you in a single move?[/li][li]Any other info I should have remembered to ask about.[/li][/ol]

  1. About 10 miles, from the Bronx to Manhattan.
  2. Hire a mover, although not an official one - my husband had used them in his previous move, and they’d done a beautiful job, but we were taking a risk as they were uninsured. It wasn’t a problem.
  3. A bit
  4. My computer, my few potted plants, my synagogue hats (having just gotten married, I only had two, but those babies are expensive), and the roses my husband had given me on after we’d been dating for a couple of weeks, which I’d dried.
  5. One trip. Kind of. We were moving from my studio in the Bronx, where we’d been living for a few weeks post-wedding because we had nowhere else to go (we had last-minute mortgage issues two days before the wedding, and needed another month to get things settled), and also from my husband’s apartment a few blocks from our new one. So one load from each our apartments, but two full truckloads total.
  6. It was Sunday, when Yom Kippur started that evening. (Every Sunday other than that for a month was holidays, Rosh Hashana or Sukkos.) We actually left the movers before they finished packing us up to head to my husband’s old apartment to eat something, then go to synagogue. “You’ve been doing a great job so far! Um, we’re going to synagogue now, here’s your check, see ya!” They did a great job even unsupervised, but we weren’t thrilled about leaving them alone with all of our worldly goods.
  7. We are in our mid and late twenties respectively.