"Sed5555" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately, this last site still has the outdated zones. The USDA
plant
hardiness zones, last updated in 1990, are about to be revised. Gone
will be
the "a and b" zones. Four more numbered zones will be added for the
semitropical portion of the country for a total of 15 zones. The
American
Horticultural Society has designed the new map. You can see it on a
very
slow-loading PDF file on their site or in a smaller html version at
the first
site mentioned. There are no longer a's or b's within zones, and the
color
coding has been named for plants that are hardy in each zone. For an
explanation, see:
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopE...rden/zones.htm
sed5555



Thanks for the info. It's a 5.7 MB File. Took just over 18 minutes to
download (48 KB/sec Modem).

From the description at
http://www.ahs.org/publications/usda...s_zone_map.htm
it looks like it will be too complex to use. I doubt that the current
zone designation will disappear soon. The AHS Heat-Zone ratings have
been out over five years and I have yet to see them used in catalogs or
on plants in a nursery. Plus there are several dozen plants in Dr.
Cathey's "Heat_Zone Gardening" book that are not rated for our Heat-Zone
(HZ 11 or 12 - kinda hard to tell from the maps) that grow very well
here (Phoenix AZ). Sunset's zones still seem to work best for us but
there are lots of new xeriscape plant introductions every year and it
seems to be difficult for Sunset to keep their Plant Encyclopedia up to
date.
Olin