Re: A Pet Peeve and Need Identification Help

**John MacGregor j*@earthlink.net**

on 6/26/03 8:06 AM, Dan Clost at dan.clost@sympatico.ca wrote:

> Hi John,
> Allow me to display my ignorance: what's a "sunset zone?"
> Dan   > USDA zone 9   Sunset zones 21/23

Dan,

Beginning in the 1930s, Sunset Magazine became most popular publication on
the West Coast, covering travel, food, architecture, gardening, and all
other aspects of lifestyle in the West.  In the 1970s it expanded its
regular coverage to include the Rocky Mountain states as well as Hawaii and
Alaska.  

>From the 1930s Sunset also published several editions of the Sunset Western
Garden Book.  With the 1967 edition, it established a series of climatic
zones for the 11 western continental states which took into consideration
many  more detailed climatic factors than just the average low temperatures
that determine the USDA zones: length of growing season, timing and amount
of rainfall, winter lows, summer highs, humidity, etc.  Since then, these
zones have been refined and edited several times.  In its 1997 National
Gardening Book, these zones were expanded to cover the entire mainland U.S.
(extending into southern Canada, as well), and in the 7th (2000) edition of
the Western Garden Book zones were established for Alaska and Hawaii.  (As
the principle researcher and writer for this edition, I wrote encyclopedia
entries for more than 100 genera).

For decades, the Sunset Western Garden Book has been the principle reference
in the west for plants and gardening (many Western gardeners call it their
"bible").  Since 2000, Sunset has also published garden books for the
Northeast and the Midwest.  (Don't expect one for the Southeast.  Sunset is
now owned by AOL-Time-Warner, which also owns Southern Living, which
publishes its own garden book).  Those of us who use them generally consider
the Sunset Zones far more useful than the USDA zones because they yield far
more detailed information.

In addition to printed versions in these books, the Sunset zones are on the
web at:

http://www.homestore.com/HomeGarden/Gardening/Landscaping/Zones/Climate/Inde
x.asp

John MacGregor
South Pasadena, CA 91030
USDA zone 9   Sunset zones 21/23

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