Lots of friends that will not give you grief.

I'm one. I admit it. Succulents are a bane.

@Lauren Here in Oregon one just leaves them alone and they grow like weeds. When I first got to Oregon I noticed many people were standing on the side of the road, and they were eating something. Back in Montana, a can of blackberries was about three dollars and that was in the '80s. These people were eating blackberries, here they are weeds and it is hard to get rid of them. Raspberries and almost every other kind of berry and strawberries are plentiful here.

@dalefvictor Wow, that's lovely! I'm sure there are places like that here - my brother has great success with them - but I don't have much shade around me, so they don't thrive on their own without additional water, particularly during our summers.

@Lauren We moved to Astoria from Portland, a distance of about 90 miles. Portland is in a valley and gets a lot of weather that comes down the Columbia River from the eastern part of Washington or from the south coming up the Willamette Valley. It can get quite hot and cold there. Here in Astoria, I tell people that it is against the law for the weather to get above seventy. If it does then the humidity goes high and it is kind of like a sauna, just during the day though. Most of the time our weather comes off the Ocean so it is warm and comfortable.
When I first saw the roads in Oregon, back in the seventies, on a vacation to visit my mother. I noticed that the green grass grew right up to the asphalt roadway. Everything that could be green was, even during the summer. Now the heat gets higher, this year killing some trees, but the rest of the time there are usually good temperatures for being outside. I have friends that grow all kinds of plants and it seems they all flourish.