Zones

Hello all,
I've been doing a bit of armchair gardening on the web and some sites I've visited say plants are hardy in different zones eg zone 6
I presume this is different parts of the country.
Can anyone tell me what zone Plymouth comes under
Thanks

 

Zone 9

 

Wow, that was quick!

thanks Aaron :thumb:

 

"I presume this is different parts of the country."

Different parts of the World. You were most probably on a non-UK site (or an internationalised-UK-site) as the Brits tends not to talk much about Zones as everything is Zone 8 - although you are probably Zone 9

However, UK is Zone 8 based on minimum Winter temperatures, but we can't necessarily grow the crops typical of Zone 8 because our Summers are not as hot, so that's probably why we tend to ignore the Zones thingie. USA Eastern seaboard Zone 8 can probably grow Palm trees ...

http://www.uk.gardenweb.com/forums/zones/hze.html - Europe
http://www.uk.gardenweb.com/forums/zones/hze1.html - UK
http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html - USA (bit more busy than the UK map!!)

 

Marley, that's the same website I found, but didn't want to post the link in case it was forbidden

I was surprised that most of coastal Ireland was Zone 9 (including Mayo!!), the same as Cornwall...

 

Thanks Guys, great explanation :thmb:

I was surprised parts of Scotland were in the same zone. You learn something new every day dont you?

 

You may have noticed at the end of my address at the right hand side of my posts it gives my zone(8b) I get quite a few seeds from the us and canada and knowing the zones they come from gives a good idea what they will stand temperature wise.

 

I think last year I was zone 9 and this year I was zone 7, what zone I will be next year is a mystery.:D

Not a lot of help to us in the UK as far as I'm concerned

 

I can't find them now, but I have seen a lot of individual plants quoted on the internet with a zone range such as zone 6 to zone 10. Whilst I have never seen it quoted I have assumed that zone 5 would be too cold and zone 11 would be too hot for that plant.

I now see that there there is a heat zone rating as well http://theseedsite.co.uk/hardinesss.html I think I am in heat zone 0. :D

This site also gives figures for the RHS classification, which I find to be a bit confusing. For instance half hardy means not hardy at all. And frost tender means that it is tender well before frost.

Fully hardy - hardy to -15C
Frost hardy - hardy to -5C
Half hardy - hardy to 0C
and Frost tender - hardy to + 5C

There is another complication I have seen for such things as Ginger plants. I see one source quoting a minimum temperature of, say, +15C and another source saying hardy to -5C. Now thats a big difference. I think there are refering to two different types of minimum. One is the minimum for happy growing, and the other is the minimum it can stand in winter without being killed.

 

That RHS classification makes a lot more sense to me than this zone thing Peter.

Although having said that the RHS do tend to err on the side of safety when stating how hardy a particular plant is.
I think they usually state the temperature that the plant remains undamaged, lets face it we all get plants that look a bit the worst for wear at this time of the year.

Lets face it, without all the details of position, soil type and moisture etc. its very difficult to say what is hardy and what isn't.

 

Its not the classification that I have problems with Pete, but the names. Its not immediately obvious which is better half hardy or frost hardy. I prefer numbers - they go in a logical order.

The more I learn about plants the more I have come to realise that a lot of deaths over winter are not caused by low temperatures, but by winter wet. This is particularly true of Penstemon, where they tend to use the word persistance rather than hardiness, as they are particularly prone to the wet.

True grit - that what you need, :D

 

Zones and hardiness levels go out the window when we have an extra cold winter like the one just passed. A lot of plants can survive outside all winter here in the south, but the unusual drop in temperature (for this part of the country) played havoc and has killed some things off. I've definitely got a Penstemon that hasn't had it. The cold, then warm, then cold hasn't helped either-it just lulled the plants to start growing too early, only to be shocked by later frosts.