On 14 Apr 2004 09:22:29 GMT, Nick Maclaren wrote:

The problem in the UK is about four months of dark, wet conditions,
wandering around freezing point. The darkness means that plants
don't grow much, and so there is little food, the erratic
temperatures block hibernation, and the wetness means that it is
difficult to keep warm. San Francisco is half-way to the tropics,
starting from the UK.

The only place in north America with a comparable climate is the
coastal strip between Vancouver and Anchorage.

Actually, that description applies pretty well to the Pacific
coast right down into California. To steer this thread back
on-topic, an anecdote:

In 1987, I bought a small specimen of Chaenomeles 'Contorta' at
the famous Western Hills Nursery, in Occidental, California.
(Maps, everyone!) Two years later I was there again and asked how
their parent plant was doing. Answer, not well, winters too wet!

Here in Victoria, we're in something of a rain shadow from the
Sooke Hills, so we're evidently rather drier than Occidental.
That little sprig is now a flourishing shrub, one of the
highlights of my late winter gardcen.

It was very interesting, driving to Occidental. As you wound
along the country lanes[1] leading to the nursery, you suddenly
passed from the dry grassy hillsides we associate with California
into a zone of vegetation just like we have here on Vancouver
Island: salal, Douglas fir, etc. It was like a line drawn on a
map: a very sharp and sudden change.

So I think, Nick, that in real life, you'll find that the area
immediately along the coast is pretty awful in winter right down
into California. Remember that most of the way, there's a range
of hills or mountains just inland, and that tends to increase
precipitation.

At any rate, the raccoon is an extremely adaptable animal and I'm
sure it'll soon be naturalized all across Britain.

[1] "Country lanes" -- that area west of Santa Rosa to the coast
has been settled a long time and is a maze of little roads that
wander in no particular direction, and constitute a maze you need
a good map to navigate successfully. I suspect Britons would feel
right at home in this particular.


--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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