Rox...oh, how I hear you! My move out to SoCal from Kentucky involved me in one amazing case of culture shock! (The people were a vast improvement!) But...I'd never seen the growing things in my new yard before, nor had I experienced the little scurrying creatures. (Back in KY, if you were afraid of spiders, you were neurotic. Here, if you're afraid of spiders it's because you occasionally have to kill Black Widows or Brown Recluses, both poisonous. I've been bitten by so many Brown Recluse I think I can now bite them back.)
The gopher ate the roses and the bulbs we so lovingly planted.
The big "color bowls" full of assorted lovely things provided a Vegas-style buffet for the snails. (They said it was delicious and thank you, I distinctly heard them. I like snails. Every time it rains I go out and pick them up off the walkways and move them to a safer location. Once I picked up a bunch of tiny baby snails. They were resting comfortably in the palm of my hand...and I picked up the big one and put it there, too, while I searched for others. The big snail - must have been "Mama" - immediately went to the babies, causing me to have an emotional meltdown right there in the yard. Mama snails care for their babies. Wow.)
OK. Flowers were obviously out. So, on we moved to cactus. Well, by howdy, we can grow cactus, jade, yucca and "always alive" like there's no tomorrow. Forget to water? It just grumbles. Water? Wowzers. We have cactus that flower. One in particular grows an amazing "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" pod that pops open into a flower for 24 hours. We had ground cover that decided *it* was going to be where the edge of the driveway was and no measly blacktop was going to stop it...and it didn't. I really, really miss my California Pepper Tree, that cracks foundations, invades plumbing and poisons the ground so that nothing else can grow. It *did* provide impenatrable shade and homes for a kazillion birds.
Now I have to more or less start all over again, as well as learn a few things. I have the Miracle Grow Rose Food for the roses. I saw that it came in many, many different varieties, too.
I want to try vegetables in pots again, which just makes my husband shake his head. I tried a vegetable garden behind the old house once. I spent a lot of time out there screaming "TAKE THIS PLANT! EAT ALL OF IT! STOP TASTING EVERYTHING!" at lizards, snails, birds and heaven knows what else. I was more than willing to share, but geeze, they took one bite out of everything. Drove me nuts.