Growing \"lower\" zone plants in a \"higher\" zone.

Hello. I recently moved to Florida (zone 10) and cannot find much information on planting something here that is normally in a lower zone. For example, if a plant is listed up to zone 8 or 9, what would happen to such a plant in a higher zone like mine that often will not frost? I am interested in a few different plants, for example, seeds from my mom's serviceberry tree in IL, but a plant like that is deciduous and I am not sure what would happen to it in the winter here. Would it be too stressed out without a dormancy period?

Has anyone tried anything like this? I tried to Google this but didn't come up with anything... Maybe I wasn't using the right words :)

No insight? I can't be the only person who has thought of trying this! :)

I would start by checking the heat zones for the plant you're interested in trying. Sometimes a plant does need a period of low temperatures (think of having to pre-chill spring-flowering bulbs in warm winter areas). But according to a couple of sites, serviceberry does well in most areas. See http://www.nwplants.com/business/catalog/ame_aln.html.

Hi Boris, I do it the other way- Trying things from a higher zone in my Seattle yard! Although I lived in FL a long time ago, I did not garden then and have no particular insights about FL. Here in the North, we call it "Zone Pushing". It is a bit risky.

That said, I do have some general advice about it:
1- Often the books are correct or nearly so, if a plant is described as Zone 3-9 it is likely to need winter cold and will wilt or die in humid heat.
2- The books are not always correct. Some plants will actually do fine. You need to research each one individually, and you may decide to try it. For this, I strongly recommend that the "iffy" plant is not placed in your yard in a place that will be obvious if it fails, like right by your front porch. Put the "iffy" ones in a secondary location.
3- DG is a great place to start the research. Go into PlantFiles, and note the area of "Regional" Reports. You may need to click on "show more" to get the whole list. This is where people in DG have noted the plant grows in their own area!. It is not always 100% correct, sometimes someone will say something grows in their home, but they grow it indoors and did not understand that this report is for outdoor plants. But in your case if people in FL and GA and TX have had it you may be in luck. Also look at the "Gardeners' Notes" section, it may be someone near you has described their experience.
4- Something like Serviceberry is tough, because there are so many cultivars listed. One thing you might do is an advanced search, in the proper forums like FL Gardening, see if someone mentioned it there. Also, ask at your local nursery, they may know about Serviceberry.
5- Start a thread about this in the Florida Forum, maybe someone has tried this and will answer.
6- the University of Florida Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences has lots of info on the web about what are reliable plants for different parts of FL (search UF IFAS), a good starting point.

So, doing a bit of "Zone Pushing" is a lot of fun, sometimes I find things that do well here that nobody else has (but lots of failures too)- experimenting and reading about it is enjoyable for me. Welcome to the endlessly interesting world of gardening.