Gardens – Fairy Epic

If you are ready to identify your planting zone, you can look at this handy map from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Knowing your growing site can determine whether or not a specific plant will likely thrive in your area. Gardening zones are regions in which certain plants are liable to thrive. The soil, temperature, and air quality of an area determine the types of plants that can grow there, and different types of areas exist. these areas are zones, and all plants have a zone they grow best in. By understanding your USDA hardiness zone or Canadian planting zone, you can select plants that will be able to survive and thrive in your region from one year to the next. Understanding hardiness zones means choosing plants for your yard that are more likely to survive the local winter. While you may not notice significant differences in what plants can survive in two very similar zones, knowing where your garden falls on the map is still important. Without those zones, you will need to rely on trial and error (or experienced farmers and gardeners) to help you figure out what will or will not grow in your growing zone. Knowing which site your garden is located in will help you decide if you need to keep your plants inside or out in winter. Why Planting Zones Matter Planting zones are essential to gardeners in colder climates who want to grow plants that will survive through the winter. Planting zones are more helpful to gardeners growing perennial plants, as perennials are designed to last more than just a single growing season. There is no need to worry about planting zones for annual flowers like petunias and vegetables like squash since those plants generally finish their lifecycle (seed bud to seed production) within one year. While these zones generally indicate if the plant will grow and survive, that does not always mean it will flower and produce fruits or vegetables. IKnowingden's zones do ndoiguredetermineto plant vegetables. Planting the wrong plants in the wrong zone could result in anything from stunted growth to the plants dying. Planting trees or shrubs outside their area can cause lost leaves, dead branches, or even the death of the plant itself. Hardy means the plants can survive in given zones of cold winter temperatures. Most Hardy plants come with zone ratings that tell you what area will be challenging during winter year-to-year. The zone of cold hardiness relates to a plant's ability to survive winters. The zone designation for a plant's hardiness indicates the annual mean minimum extreme temperatures reached at the site during the specified period and is very important in plant survival in specific locations. The USDA and Its Plant Hardiness Maps The USDA plant hardiness zone map breaks down the U.S. and Canada into 13 zones based on average winter minimum temperature. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map divides North America into eleven zones based on the average minimum annual temperature. The original, most widely used system, developed by USDA as an approximate reference for landscapes and gardens, defines thirteen zones based on the longest-term mean annual minimum temperature. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zone Map was created to help gardeners, landscapers, and producers identify the best plants to grow in the gardening zones. The USDA plant hardiness zone map is a standard for gardeners and growers to determine what plants will develop well at a given location. Hardiness zone/gardening zone refers to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zone Map (pictured above), which tells gardeners what plants are most likely to thrive at their location, according to how cold the winters are growers. If you want to look at a zone for your location, you can use the U.S. Department of Agricultures Interactive Map to look up your plant's hardiness zone for your exact location, right down to your zip code. Type the ZIP code for the area where you want to grow your yard or hardscape, and the zone number appears. You can also find your planting zone by entering your zip code at the Arbor Day Foundations site. To use a planting zone map, check your area first, as discussed above, and then check the zone listed on a plant's label. The Gardening Map of the Department of Agriculture The U.S. Department of Agriculture developed the U.S. Department of Agriculture Hardiness Zone Map, also called the Gardening map or the United States Plant Zone Map. While factors beyond temperature influence the ability of a plant to survive in a given climate, the USDA Hardiness Zone Map is a good place to start when deciding what to grow, mainly if you live in the Eastern half of the country. While it is not as widely used as the USDA Hardiness map, AHS Heat Zone maps can indicate how well a plant will tolerate warmer temperatures. The NRC also produces a map showing the Canadian Hardiness Zones, based on USDA's approach to Extreme Minimum Temperatures. In addition to using data from weather stations, the 2012 map relies on algorithms that consider other climate factors that may influence plant zone classification, such as elevation and proximity to water. Unlike the USDA map, which is only based on winter minimum temperatures, the planting zone maps produced by Natural Resources Canada (NRC) consider a more comprehensive range of climatic variables, including maximum temperatures and long periods without freezing. Sunset published a series breaking down the climate zones in more detail than USDA hardiness zones, identifying 45 different zones across the U.S., including the temperature spectrum across seasons, rainfall, wind patterns, elevation, and the length and structure of the growing season. Sometimes called growing zones or gardening zones, hardiness zones refer to the USDA-developed map that divides the U.S. into regions according to the average minimum winter temperature of the U.S. Tolerance is where hardiness zones come in: They specify each region's average low temperatures, so gardeners can choose perennial plants that can tolerate a specific part's typical type of winter. Also, the USDA hardiness zones include no information on the length of the freezing temperatures, the temperature in summer, or the insolation of sunlight; so sites that might share the same mean winter minimum temperature for fewer freezing nights, and are within the same gardening zone, have dramatically different weather.