I've always wanted to move back home to Kentucky so that I could garden in Zone 6. Zone 6 is where your hydrangeas bloom year after year after year. And where azaleas and rhodies can grow tall and full and lush--instead of the little two-feet-tall miniatures that are here in this "northern" garden. But now, thanks to global warming, Zone 6 has come to me! It's hard not to love 50 and 60 degree weather in January. Kelly and I have been sitting on the back porch most mornings. And I could, if I would, go out there and do a lot of gardening right now. It's pretty wet, but I could move, prune, and/or plant perennials, shrubs, trees right now. Maybe not everything would survive, but some would. Anyway, here's the site for the new hardiness map. There a cool feature where you can press play and watch the map change from the 1990 version to today's.
http://arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm And even though I love this weather and I really really want a Zone 6 garden, I hope there's a day when we (and our children and our children's children) can use all the energy we want because it's clean, it's cheap, it creates more than enough jobs for everybody right here in this country as well as any other country that is interested, and we don't have to fight anybody for it.
NOTE: This rant inspired by Garden Rant.
http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/
Martha Stewart published an article about Sweet Pea Gardens in her magazine a few years ago. Their garden is in Maine, where I'm sure they can grow beautiful sweet peas. Here, with our heat and humidity, they are trouble. They need to be planted early. They need a six foot trellis. (Thank you,Mark!) And the rabbits think that they are appetizers, so we have to put up one of those tacky little fences around the rows. But when they bloom, they are the sweetest flowers ever. So the order is in the mail. . .
