Cass wrote:

All valuable information, just like the information that there are
places in New York that are nominally Zone 7 where lots of things die
during the winter, where winter protection is problematic because of
high humidity and rainfaill, freeze thaw cycles and thin, rocky soils.
I'm not sure I would characterize reporting these differences as lies.

It is sound advice to go by people's "Real World" experiences with
respect to HM and their cold tolerance. Hmmm ....

Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream Neo that you were so sure was real.
What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the
difference between that dream world and the real world?

Interesting analysis of some of the variables in rose-growing in
different places, Cass. For those in cold places where freeze-thaw is
not a big factor, anyone who lives in a zone with a higher USDA number
must seem less qualified to talk about cold tolerance. However, as you
point out, the Eastern Sierra is a world unto itself, west of the
Rockies so much is different from the East of it, west of the
Alleghenies is all New World, and only those of us who have tried to
garden in wildly varying places might appreciate how Forsythia can be
grown but not bloom in parts of the Mid-West, may be, for example.

--
Radika
California
USDA 9 / Sunset 15