America is a big country. Some of us live and garden in cold areas; some of us enjoy a much warmer climate. It’s the same with plants. Some native plants open their flowers as the mountain snow melts around them, others insist on tropical conditions to grow at all. The same applies to all the garden plants we grow that originate from around the world, each species is adapted to a particular climate.
The big question is this: how do we match the needs of individual varieties of garden plants with the climate in our area? In particular, are the winter temperatures in our area too cold to suit the plants that we’d like to grow? Which plants really will perform after their winter dormancy – and which should we simply not consider? Fortunately, there’s a very simple system that provides the answer.
