Beginner Gardening: Contemplating Plant Zones with Hardiness and Heat zone maps, 1 by Twincol

Twincol wrote:
ecrane3, without reading the entire thread following poodlelady's Post #5761973 at 12:53 this evening, I went back out to the Better Homes/Gardens and the Arboretum sites to once again try to figure out which zone Fresno is in, using my zip 93705. Then I googled temp history (which got me nowhere at The Weather Channel and other similar sites) trying to find historical temp ranges as compared to average seasonal ranges.

So I googled plant zones and came up with HGTV's plant zones, which provided an interesting note about how each zone represents a 10 degree temp range, with the designation "a" or "b" highlighting a 5 degree distinction within that 10 degree range. Like, duh, and while that should be relatively obvious to the casual observer, not all zones are highlighted as "a" or "b" so I never gave those letters much thought. Except that . . . it is making me CRAZY, those letters! ! !

So here I sat, confused as usual, still not certain what zone to look toward. So, OK, I go look at my Sunset book as you suggested and learn that indeed it is not unusual for us to range from 24-18 degrees apparently. Oh phooey! More typical, however, is above 30 degrees, me-thinks. The Sunset Garden Book makes a good case for zone 9, tho, so I'll wriggle around 9a to 9b [chuckling] and keep my denial, eh?

And, Nanbernier . . . heat zone map? Aaaaahh, yes, a heat zone map will hopefully be coming one of these days. With such a map we desert-ers oughta' be able to work out our plant zones for plants year 'round, finally. With luck.

Linda
(pic added to make this garden-related: look at that 5ft tall miniature rose tree throw out 3+ feet of late season branch, silly tree)

edited for misspelling, as usual



This message was edited Nov 9, 2008 12:19 AM