eva shovelful wrote:
.. I see this newsgroup is pretty informative and there are some
who are very helpful with legitimate questions regarding gardening
problems. By the way, how do I find out what garden zone I am in?

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

There are similar maps for other countries in other places.

I
am very frustrated with the local extension agents here because it's
predominately a farming area on a large and commercial scale. Mostly
corn, soybeans, millet and cotton. I haven't seen much in the way of
unique plantings, yet. But now that we've moved here, I hope to break
that common thread I see in every yard. Nandina, crape myrtles, all
seemingly the watermelon color or white ones, mums, celosia (a local
woman called them cocks combs) lots of boxwood, Banana plants of all
things, canna's, elephant ears and lantana that apparently comes
back. So I need to find out how to find the gardening limit zone for
growing. Any ideas?

Thank you in advance.


The above will give you a start but it tells you only about cold hardiness.
There is some correlation between that and other conditions, eg a zone that
has a very cold winter is unlikely to have a very hot summer. But within a
given cold zone there are other climate conditions such as the maximum heat
of the summer and the length of the growing season which can make a
difference. Also microclimate can make a difference, for example, some of
my neighbours who are up the hill (in the same cold zone) have much less
trouble with frost sensitive plants than I do.

David