If you’ve ever tried to make things grow in our neighborhood, chances are you’ve cursed the climate or the soil at some point.

You’re not alone, says Jimmy Turner, director of research at the Dallas Arboretum: “Dallas is cursed with a climate that ranges to all extremes.” And the soil? “There is no such thing as too much compost,” he adds.

But, Turner says, there is a silver lining in our cloud of gardening discontent. We are blessed with being in a “cross-road area,” he says. “We’re not too far north, south, east or west. We can grow a huge range of plant material that gardeners outside of our area cannot.”

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