Beam me to Planet Gore !
The temperature has risen 1/10th of a degree, Nancy. Get a clue! You're being irresponsible selling perennial plants to people that won't do well in their gardens. It's called "lying" to your customer base.
Grrrrrrr!
(However, Karen Johannsen knows her stuff; these two are arch enemies in the local Gardening World; I'm not well-known enough yet to be in the fight, LOL!)
Articles like this make my job VERY difficult to do!
I didn't realize that the gardening zones were that sensitive. No wonder we need professional landscapers if a temperature change of 1/10th of a degree means you need entirely different plants!
It is like selling fruit trees like apples and other types that require minumim yearly "Chill Hours" to produce fruit down here in Mississippi. It will never produce. But you know what, you can't find a fig tree that will produce and actually thrives here at local or Big Box garden centers!
Of interest to the gardeners!
The low tonight and tomorrow night is forecast to be 32. Not unheard of here but the already short growing season must be at least two weeks shorter on the spring end of it. If fall frost comes early this year will be a wash. Maybe I’ll plant some glacier lilies.
This has been a chilly spring/early summer here in California. We should we well into consistent high 80s, mid 90s, occasionally 100s. It’s mid June and it’s 70s day after day after day. Global warming my keester.
A few years back, early 90’s I think it was, I read an article in some gardening magazine that the Zones that had been listed on the seed packets and in gardening guides were developed in the early 20th century and had not been updated since then. The gardeners in certain zones had reported that the colder zones had moved substantially SOUTHWARD for their areas and that plants that were formally okay to plant at certain dtes were no longer valid. Some seed company (Burpee? I don’t remember) had done a study and found that this was indeed so. The frost lines had moved south over the past few decades and the zones listed were now invalid.
Does anybody remember this article or know where I can find it?.......................
I lost my hardy Wisterias, quite a bit of my hardy ivy, 2 hydrangeas, 4 or 5 hosta plantings and about a dozen very hardy sedum plantings this past winter in an area of Wisconsin that is a half zone warmer than Madison. Stuff that I’ve never had trouble with before over numerous winters took a beating this past year. Proof of the coming ice age?
Diana, thanks for posting this! Even if there is a microscopic difference in temperature, people should not vary too much out of their traditional zone. We have technically been on the very edge between zones 3 and 4, but generally, zone 3 stuff is safer and hardier. I could even plant some zone 5 stuff (I long for blackberries!), only if I wanted to baby it all the time and cart it indoors in the winter, which is just not practical.
xcamel, this is for your ping list.
The hardy arctic plants here are in pain due to late spring and lack of summer, second year.
global warming?....maybe incidental....maybe transient.....but try telling my tomato plants that its June and they should be having buds by now.....
I’m staying in z6b even though winter is starting later in NJ with the ground not freezing until Jan. 1 now, and our low temps no worse than 5-10 deg. F most years (supposedly z7).
What I think separates z6 from z7 is the ground stays frozen in z6 and it doesn’t in z7, not more than the top couple inches for a few days, whereas mine is frozen deep for three months. Air temp is not so relevant.
And when your ground that freezes has a whole lot of clay in it, you can’t push zones too far.
I still lift cannas, salvias, agastaches, brugmansia, and rosemary and I’ve lost a lot that is hardy even to z5 in Western states. I’ve lost more z7 stuff than I can count, even with the best drainage I can provide and mulching.
My zone-pushing abstinence pledge was broken by a Hamelia patens (firebush) from Lowe’s. Why are they tempting me so far up north? It was for the hummingbirds you know.
Basically I pledge to make and break my pledge every year. :)
The temperature has risen 1/10th of a degree<<<<
See, there is proof of the global warming.........[said with a laugh].
The world must have tilted, as in NW Arizona, I am still having cool days and cold nights, which is all wrong for the normal.
Interesting thread, I will link it on the survival thread...
Don't worry.
We will be on your side when you are.
:-)
Diana, you probably already know, but fr those of you who don’t google “The year without a summer” It’s a real eye opener.
The polar axis is regular in moving from past true.. and it moves incrementally. It has recently found a position. And because of this North Carolinians will now be able to grow orchards the like of which they've never before been able. And because of this all kinds of areas around the world should experiment with what they can grow, and might reduce crops (or move those north/south).
When I was kid in the San Francisco Bay Area -- every summer was predictably HOT. The years leading up to my move out South/east, I was actually wearing sweats at times during summer in the SF Bay Area. Changes in weather? Yep, I've seen 'em during my lifetime. Microclimates? I love 'em. But! This also means extremes in weather will happen in spurts until the entire cycle adjusts to new "true". It's not a calamity. It means to be aware, and make adjustments accordingly. It's evolution just evolving, again, and here are the so-called Most Earthy of the Earthies, the Liberals, screaming like chickens with their heads cut off, over natural rythyms of the Earth.
And tragically, must be said, until that synthesization occurs, there will be dramatic earth/weather events. We don't know enough about natural rythems to predict how this change will specific effect areas or microclimates; so much is contingent upon winds, mountains, rivers, tectonic plates, magma to surface, etc.
The article is quite right, tho - to experiment and see what will or may grow under these newer "terms". And to be aware this will also bring about newer insects, newer types of allergies, etc.
Liberals find evolution SCARY!