Re: Hardiness and heat zones

**"Marge Talt" m*@hort.net**

I, too, question the dropping of the 'a' and 'b' designations and the
reduction of data used.  Just wonder what was *really* going on
there.  IMO, the heat zone map is pretty useless because it only
takes high temperature into consideration, whereas summer survival
often has a lot more to do with hot, humid nights than daytime high
temperature.

While hardiness zones are a nice starting point, they are only that
and we need to help our readers understand this.  Knowing your "zone"
(if you live in the US - useless info. in other parts of the world)
can be helpful, but it's not a panacea for learning your own
particular micro climate, the provenance of the plant you want to
grow and its basic requirements.

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@hort.net
Editor:  Gardening in Shade
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----------
> From: Daryl <pulis@mindspring.com>
> It's up on the AHS website and, in my opinion, it's a disaster. Not
only
> does it throw out all but the recent years (1987-2001) of data, but
they did
> away with the a and b designations. To quote: "The "a" and "b"
intra-zone
> divisions used on the 1990 map have been dropped, so each zone is
broader
> and easier to follow as your eye moves westward and the mountains
make
> climatic gradients more complex. West of the Rocky Mountains, more
discrete,
> rounded divisions have replaced the crazy tangle of zones that
marked the
> 1990 map"
> 
> That's laughable. If adopted, it will be totally useless in my part
of the
> world.
> 
> http://www.ahs.org/publications/usda_hardiness_zone_map.htm
> 
> Daryl (Formerly "officially" zone 7a, microclimatically 6b, and now
in Zone
> 8! )

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