How to learn your gardening zone (south, cold, planting, winter)

[no kudzu]

From time to time it changes but only a slight amount and there are pockets within a zone (or even in your own yard) which might be different but this site will help the many newbies who don't have a clue.

Find Your Gardening Zone - Bonnie Plants

This is a very old article by Tony Avent of Plants Delight but it gives more info about hardiness zones.

http://www.plantdelights.com/Article/Plant-Hardiness

[Ohiogirl81]

You look at a map. It's not rocket science.

[Lost Roses]

That's a good article for newbies! Let's hope they don't also look at their Sunset climate zone and wonder what's what.

[ocngypz]

There are microclimates within every planting zone.

Those items which I planted 15 miles south of here and did well.........don't do well where I am now and vice versa.

[hotzcatz]

Well, in some areas the climate changes abruptly in not much distance. Other places, you can go miles and miles and not a lot of difference.

We've moved ten miles and gone from zone 12B to zone 12A. I think a lot of it has to do with the change in elevation (420 feet to 1100 feet).

[Isleofpalms85]

Couldn't agree more on this fact, Planting Zones also are only the average coldest minimum extreme low temperature one can expect in a given climate zone and doesn't reflect the fact that the winter time extreme low temperatures some years can vary quite a bit from year to year and some years will have low temperatures quite a bit colder than the average expected low temperature extreme, while other years will have much warmer extreme low temperatures, The Planting Zone also does not specify the duration of the average extreme cold temperatures or how often they occur each year; Some plants may only be able to handle say an extreme low temperature of -20 F for a couple of hours and may not survive if such a low occurs for several nights in a row, so that is why I take the fact that the zone where I am was recently as of 2012 upgraded from a Zone 5 to a Zone 6, to be exact where I lived was revised from a Zone 5b in the 1990 zone map to a Zone 6a in the 2012 map, and a rather Borderline Zone 6a at that. I take the 2012 hardiness zone map with a grain of salt because it is based on extreme winter cold temperature data from 1976 through 2005 and therefore does not include data al the way through this past winter and therefore although it is from a more recent time period as of 2012 it was already 7 years old, so I suspect that a revision may be in the offing but when that will be I cannot say, but a Zone Change From a 5B to a 6A is not a major difference in climate, especially not a borderline Zone 6A like where I am located.