"Bud" wrote in message ...
On 2011-07-23, Higgs Boson wrote:

Mandevilla, in my experience -- and I am in a mild Mediterranean area
-- is very finicky. I tried it a few times, then gave up, and now
trying again. So in an area that gets frost -- I dunno...

HB

There must be varieties of them. I bought two the other day. One says it
is not hardy below freezing the other has a tag that says it will with
stand temps down to -25. What gives?
--
Bud

Along that line, I live in Toquerville, Utah. SW Utah, 27 miles north of
Arizona line, about the same distance in east of Nevada line. In different
gardening books, I am classified as different zones. I am still not sure
what zone I am actually in.

I see containers that say good for zone such and such. Unless you're smack
in the middle, the outcome could be a tossup.

I brought some birds of paradise back to Las Vegas from San Diego, those
ones that grow all over down there. I did not expect them to last past the
first summer. They are five years old now, and although not thriving like
the ones along the California coast, they are alive and well.

I pretty much go by what the people at the nursery say. A local nursery
near my little home town. I just take in what the one twenty miles away
says about what will grow where. Just like the labels. And a lot of the
staff at those nurseries are told to say anything will grow anywhere, just
load it on their truck.

You can position things so they are protected either from wind or sun or
cold, and they may perform good. Things might not be supposed to grow here
and there, but they do. Then things that should grow don't. I went through
eight ocotillos in Vegas under a nursery guarantee, the third and fourth
planting being done by their staff, and none of them lived. There was a
huge one in the same planter that we started with one cane we stuck in the
ground with no soil and no fertilizer, and now it is a monster.

Go figger.

Steve