Plant files - an idea

Over in the Texas Forum we have been talking about plants and more than once the topic of plant files sip code reports not telling us all the inforamtion we need to know if it will grow for us. Could there be a second box we check when we add a zip code report that says something like -

Hardy, outdoors
Houseplant, Greenhouse plant
Indoor and outdoor plant
Annual/not hardy

This way when we looked at the zip code reports we could sort out the information on if they plant will grow out door for us. It will also let us know that if they plant needs to be brought in for the winter.

...but isn't that information already contained in the PlantFiles entry?

Not really, the zone reports are ok but knowing a gardener in zone 8a like me that gives a zone report brings this in during the fall would be a huge help. There are times when something for a Southern grower an outdoor plant will have a 5 or 6 zone report, we dont know if this report is for a houseplant or if this plant might really be that hardy outdoors - it would really help when someone right on that zone line is listing and to know if it can really take it outside or not.

The categories should help distinguish between annuals, perennials (which means it is frost-hardy, to whatever zone is listed), and tropical/tender perennial, which are not frost-hardy (and their zone range should be limited to zone 9 or 10 or warmer if that's the case.)

The zone details should cover only the zones a plant is completely hardy (outdoors, year round) in - if a bulb or plant must be protected or brought indoors in a zone, than that zone shouldn't be listed in the range.

Here for example - http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/3017/
Is said to grow in all the following places -

Lake Havasu City, Arizona
Queen Creek, Arizona
Clayton, California
Downey, California
Long Beach, California
Los Angeles, California
Sacramento, California
San Anselmo, California
San Francisco, California
Santa Rosa, California
Upland, California
Brooksville, Florida (2 reports)
Lake Worth, Florida
Tampa, Florida
Titusville, Florida
Venice, Florida
Commerce, Georgia
Hawkinsville, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Berwyn, Illinois
Lake Charles, Louisiana
Starkville, Mississippi
Saint Louis, Missouri
South Plainfield, New Jersey
Snow Hill, North Carolina
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina
Dundee, Ohio
Clatskanie, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Lititz, Pennsylvania
Blacksburg, South Carolina
Conway, South Carolina
North Augusta, South Carolina
Mount Pleasant, Tennessee
Pocahontas, Tennessee
Austin, Texas
Blanco, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Houston, Texas
La Feria, Texas
Laneville, Texas
Missouri City, Texas
San Marcos, Texas
Trinity, Texas
Salt Lake City, Utah
Petersburg, Virginia
Vancouver, Washington

It is just hard to know who is going this outdoors, who is growing this indoors, and who brings it in and out.

I know the details already there are great but this would help some of us that are on the border with a plant to know to risk it or bring it in. If the person in Berwyn, Illinois leaves the Brug out all year (and I am sure they dont but bare with me) then I know I can leave it out here all year to.

Chuckle...Mitch, I'm not going to bare anything today, it's too cold!) But I'll happily bear with you ;o)

Using this as an example (a good one, by the way!) I would look at the plant details and quickly conclude it is not going to be hardy in my zone 6b garden, even though it may grow well for me here (or in Berwyn IL), but it is rated as hardy only to zone 10, so I should be prepared to overwinter it indoors if I'm going to try to keep it from year-to-year.

I understand what you're asking for, but the ZIP code report is only meant to be the starting point: you find the plant(s) that are reported as growing in your zone, and then you can open any interesting entry to see the pertinent details, including if it's fully hardy in your zone.

Yes, Mitch does have a point, the zip code says a person grows the plant in a certain place or zone, but it doesn't tell us if the plant is hardy in the zone or not.

Well, I guess what Terry is saying is that the zip codes are not a guide to plant hardiness.

Lol - Terry - lol


I see what you mean, just us zone pushers I guess dying to know who is getting this to work for them and who is not. I might be the only one but I get interested in what people are doing with these plants. Back when we had the names there I dmailed several folks - like I found a guy who grew Myers lemons in 8a outdoors. With the change - and a good one of leaving off our names from the zipcode report - I cannot dmail and find out so I get a little curious.

:-) Mitch

That's true. And we knew that would be the case when the ZIP code reports were implemented, because there's nothing to restrict them to perennial plants. You'll find reports for annuals, biennials, tender perennials, and hardy perennials - because the only criteria is that you observed the plant grew well in your garden, or somewhere within the ZIP code you add.

The hardiness information is - or should be - listed in the PlantFiles entry itself. As always, if you come across a plant that needs some TLC, you're welcome to add to any section that is "unknown" or report errors to the PF editors if something was entered incorrectly.

Thanks Terry - I knew if there was a chance you would know.

Mitch

Sorry - we crossposted ;o)

Josephine has it exactly right: the ZIP code reports are not intended to be an indicator of a plant's hardiness, only that it grew well for the reporter.

Yeah, leaving the names off was a good call to protect members' privacy, but it does leave you wondering who reported it ;o)

Hopefully a lot of our readers will share more ZIP code reports and accompanying comments this year; the more information we all share about a particular plant, the more accurate and thorough the combined information will become.

Terry,

I have a similar question about PF. The zip code report aside, how do we know that the plant hardiness zone is correct? For example, say that something was listed as hardy in Zone 10 and 11 because it was entered by someone in Zone 10 who would probably not know whether the plant would be hardy in Zone 9 and up.

Even if I know something is hardy in my zone, I wouldn't know about other zones. So, if a plant is hardier than indicated in PF, getting it corrected would depend on someone reporting that it is incorrect? Is this right? If so, then I think I agree with Mitch that having a "check-off" place next to the zipcode box, might be a quick and easy way to put in the corrections/additions.

Karen

For the same reason, question that mitchF is concerned about. When I look at a plant (in p.f.), and learn of its respective zones. Those that I treat as "tender perennials" I refrained myself from entering my zipcode report. If others are asked to do the same, perhaps, will that eliminate further confusion?

To Karen's point...in theory people ought to do a little bit of research on plants that they enter so that they have the correct hardiness range (yes, I know that doesn't always happen...but that's why anyone who has better information can report an error and get things changed) To me, one person putting in a zip code report saying a plant survived a winter in their zone 7 garden doesn't necessarily mean the plant is truly hardy there, maybe it was an unusually mild winter or they had an extra warm microclimate and didn't realize it, so I wouldn't want the hardiness range checkboxes changed based on zip code reports.

Lily--I'm with you as far as how I use the zip code reports--for anything other than annuals I never put in a zip code report unless the plant has survived at least an entire year outdoors planted in the garden. But everyone's going to interpret it differently, and especially in the case of tender perennials that can be grown as perennials in some places but make great annuals elsewhere, it's still useful for people to know that a plant can survive a summer in the south, or in the desert, even if it won't make it through the winter. Or if I'm in zone 5 and I see someone near me say they successfully grew a plumeria, that tells me they probably do OK being overwintered indoors (not all plants do).

I think what we ought to do is encourage people to leave comments in addition to the zip code reports...that way I can tell you that such and such zone 10 plant survived a rough winter in my zone 9 garden. There's no way you'll be able to set up the zip code reports to give you all the info you need, people have to put in comments in order to really get the info everyone's looking for.

Karen, ecrane has explained it better than I could - it is incumbent upon the individual entering the data to research the details they're adding, and verify they are correct.

If you spot a plant's entry that looks wrong, please report it (there's a red "report an error" link on each page of PlantFiles.) It is most helpful if you can link to some resources to back up your correction, or tell the editors which reference book you used as your basis.

Terrye;
I'm glad you've mentioned the error report. I was at one time looking up "Japanese Pagoda" tree's hardiness. DG's pf as I recalled stated that it's hardy to zone 4, I've ran into someone with tree's knowledge and agrued that it's only hardy to zone 7 according to some national referrence....

Thank you for starting this Mitch, and for everyone else's explanations, views and tips. I have been circumspect in what I enter in the zip codes, and have tried to be sure they're only for perennials (or woodies); I'll continue to do that after reading this. (This, and the recent thread about heights, has helped me quite a bit.)

ecrane and Terry,

I agree that if someone sees an error, it should be reported and that the original reporter should have looked up the full hardiness zone for that plant. My point is that I doubt it's happening all that much -- either the error reporting, especially if it has to be linked to additional backup, or the person doing the original report looking up the full info first.

I have heard from a couple of people who said they did report an error in PF. The PF wasn't changed. So, now they just don't bother. Other than what I've been told, I know nothing about this aspect as I don't know the circumstances for the change not being made.

Since the PF reports are nearly all entered by ordinary folks working in their own gardens, doing their own thing, so to speak, it's reasonable to assume that mostly they are only reporting their own experiences. I've seen in a number of plant files the zone hardiness between cultivars can vary from Zone 10 all the way up to Zone 6 or even less. I see this mostly in cases where the only difference in the cultivars appears to be in the color. I can't think why this should be except possibly one person lives in Zone 10 and another in Zone 6.

I wasn't suggesting that the hardiness zone be changed because of anything in a zip code report. I was saying that I liked Mitch's suggestion of a simple checkbox next to the zip code report to give some idea of the method used to grow the plant in that zip code. For example, checking off more than one if necessary: indoor, outdoor, container, houseplant, with winter protection, heated greenhouse, unheated greenhouse.

Like Mitch, I too am a zone pusher. I've also noticed many times in zip code reports what appears to be info at variance with the hardiness zones listed in the PF report. In order to get complete info in situations like this, I've had to go outside DG to look it up in various other places, which sometimes takes a bit of doing.

Lily_love,

I agree completely that the assumption in the zip code report is that the plant is hardy in that zone without a greenhouse or taking it inside during the winter. However, I seriously doubt this is the way it's always being used. Because people like "bragging rights", I suspect that telling them only to use the zip code report that way wouldn't entirely work. But a check box could be very enlightening.

BTW: It's okay if y'all want to call me a pessimist -- it's been done before. LOL.

Karen

I really like the subject of this thread, though it approaches the realm of the imponderable (meaning that you can't solve everything in one place, though the attempt is a worthy endeavor).

Case in point is Lily_love's statement about Japanese Pagoda Tree (Sophora japonica, with a rename to Styphnolobium japonicum). The reference to zone 4 hardiness probably derived from a text like Dr. Dirr's Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, where it is stated that Japanese Pagoda Tree is hardy to Orono, ME in zone 4. I am personally familiar with aged specimen trees in the Ohio River valley region (Louisville KY and Lexington KY, specifically) which have weathered such extremes as any good zone 5A plant might expect, ranging in the mid -20s ºF (-28.8ºC).

How to reconcile two national references which have an apparent disagreement?

Easy -- it's called provenance. The native range of the introduced species Sophora japonica occurs in China and Korea over several comparable climatic zones. Depending on where plants/seeds of Sophora japonica were originally collected for the plants that are now growing somewhere in North America, the results may be plants tender in zones colder than zone 7 (Lily_love's reference) or plants that prove to be tough enough to survive the rigors of zone 4 as posted in the PlantFiles entry for this plant.

So....marking the checkoff boxes in PlantFiles (from gardening experience or from reference texts) is only the first step. As so well stated already in this thread, please add zip code reports for where you are growing these plants. Give a personal note about the things you know about these plants that doesn't have a convenient pre-listed slot. My favorite: on submitted images, tell more in the caption than the name of the plant! Listing the place and time of year on the photos in the PlantFiles entry tells volumes that the rest of the written information cannot.

Much like Garden Watchdog is much more valuable with the gardener's remarks and experience (not just a name, address, and plant list), PlantFiles as a resource increases exponentially as these tangible and palpable notes are added.

Dont add a zip code report - I think we can all say it does not help that much, add a comment. At least that is what I will do from now on to help better.

I wouldn't say not to add a zip code report--it's still helpful as an "at a glance" way to check things out. If I look at the list of places where a plant's being grown, and I see lots of California or other western zip codes, that tells me it may be worth doing some more investigation on a plant. But if the majority of the reports are from Florida or the Gulf coast and I don't see any westerners growing something, then I know the plant probably likes a bit more rain and humidity than I can give it, so I probably won't dig too much farther. So I still think it's helpful, but it's more helpful if there's a comment to go along with the report.

Karen--If someone reported an error to Plant Files and it didn't get corrected, my guess would be that they either didn't provide supporting references to back up what they were saying, or there were more reliable references out there that agreed with the original entry. Or if it was something they submitted recently, I imagine the admins have a queue of errors to investigate, so it may take a little time for the change to get made.

Actually, the PF queue is pretty caught up, so if PlantFiles wasn't changed per a report, it should have been communicated back to the submitter why their report was not acted upon. (Over the years, we've had a few people get miffed when their report isn't handled as they think it should have been. But as ecrane pointed out, those cases usually involve insufficient documentation to support the change.

We've also had people get upset when they report an image is incorrect and we don't agree.

If the photo is not clearly wrong, and the submitter stands by their submission, we have to tip the scales in favor of the photographer (arguably they are far better informed as to the identity of the plant than anyone looking at the image.)

Very true Terry - soil and area can change the tone and color so easy that that is the only way to make thing fair.

I use the zip code report as a quick reference before considering plants further.