Year Two of Gardening I've been busy and I'm learning a lot. I'll cut right to the chase. First things first. You should know what Zone you are planting in. For zones, refer to the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/ Perennials vs. Annuals This was my biggest blunder. I had picked out so many beautiful flowers when I first started gardening. Here's a picture of the flower beds when I first started. I had quite a few perennials. I had a couple of annuals. Well, as the summer progressed and fall came along, the temperatures began to drop and quite a few of the annuals began dying away. I tried relentlessly to keep them alive. Turns out, that's what they are supposed to do -- die away in fall/winter. The perennials, however, lasted almost all the way past December. And when their blooms fell off, they remained. And they bloomed again in the spring time, bigge...