Re: New USDA Zone Map

I am in complete agreement, Daryl, though I cannot claim your gardening longevity. Regardless of which side of the fence someone is on the "global warming" topic, when one considers the temperature swings over the millenia of our planet's history, a temperature rise over even one or two centuries could be significant of a bigger trend, or simply a transitory blip. And then to read a lasting significance into two decades...makes you wonder.
Cathy
On Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 07:27 AM, Daryl wrote:

Does anyone but me think that the new Zone map is a huge waste of money,
time and effort? Throwing out half a century of temperature readings in
favor of less than two decades worth doesn't make sense to me.

I've been gardening for nearly half a century, and have watched climates
change for a half dozen years, then change back. I've spoken to folks that
have gardened for 80 and more years, and they remember the same.

When I look at the new map, which shows me in the same zone as Atlanta,
Athens, Macon and Griffin, Georgia, I laugh, then get angry for all of the
new gardeners who will buy a plant labeled zone 8, and have it freeze. There
is so much variation among these cities as to render the map useless. And
it's not just a matter of Microclimates, but of Macroclimates. Absurd!


Daryl
"A garden, where one may enter in and forget the whole world, cannot be
made
in a week, nor a month, nor a year; it must be planned for, waited for and
loved into being." Chinese Proverb
www.MrsGreenThumb.com

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