Do You Know About Gardening Zones?

The Facts About Planting Zones

Understanding how to use gardening zones maps is essential to the success of your garden.

It’s not that hard to plant gardens and nurture them to growing success; you just need to be aware of how to use a planting zones map and a few other tips to grow flourishing gardens.

You can click the zone map above to go to the USDA "Plant Hardiness Zone Map", where you can look at your individual state if you're in the US to get more information.

The gardening zones map is meant to be used as a general guideline that you’ll need to seriously consider before you begin to do any gardening.

However, don’t be confused or fooled; some plants do well in many different kinds of climate. The best knowledge for learning how to locally grow plants in your area is to talk with others in your hometown at your plant and gardening center, gardening club, or florist.

Or, go to your local bookstore or library and get a good book on native plants for your region. It's sure to have a map of gardening zones for your area.

A little history about how maps came into use is necessary to be a fully informed gardener!

The first map ever created for information on plantings was the USDA Hardiness Zone Map, and it came from the combined effort of Henry Skinner in the 1800s when he worked with the US National Arboretum, and the American Horticultural Society which produced the valuable map of information on the climates in the US.

It was a generalized map of meteorological information broken into zones of large areas for the US. It was the first time people had some type of guideline to go by for planting and growing, not only decorative plantings, but crop information as well.

This was necessary because many people were on the move throughout the country, and many didn’t know their local areas' growing capabilities.

Later in 1960, the map was revised and was named the Plant Hardiness Zone Map with more detailed information, and included all of North America.

A few reasons for changing the map were that there was more technological ability to map weather trends, as well as data. Also, the weather patterns were changing too. More detailed information, such as the names of plants and their cold climate zones, along with an alphabetized listing of plant names were included.

Here is how the map is broken out into zones for the US.

South West – AZ, CA, NV, UT

South Mid-West – AR, KS, CO, ILL, KS, LA, MS, MO, NM, OK, TX

South East – AL, FL, GA, MA, NC, SC, CO, TN

North West – OR, ID, MT, WA, WY

North Mid-West – IA, MN, NE, ND, SD, WI, WY

North East – CT, DE, IL, IN, KY, ME, MD, MA, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VT, VA, WV

Alaska – Listed separately but in the North Mid-West

Hawaii – Hawaii is not listed in any category of the US geographic regions

The major areas are further broken out into sub areas of temperatures. Starting with zone 1, which is the coldest area of -50 degrees F and graduating up to 11 which are the warmer areas of the US.

Areas of the regional zone are further broken out into sub zones of temperatures, represented by a combination of numerical and alphabetized designations such as 2a, 2b, and 3a, 3b, and continuing on. Zone 11 is the area where annual local temperature is continually over 40 degrees F.

Like the unfamiliar settlers before, you’ll need to know the map. There are places on the Internet where you can order one and print it out to use as a gardening zones guideline, or you can just visit the map site by clicking on the map above. Remember to stay updated on any changes to the map.

With your handy map in hand, go and speak to people in the know about gardening in your area. The map is helpful, but it’s only a general guideline.

Different things concerning your local climate can affect how plants grow in your garden or around your house. Situations such as how much smog or pollution conditions, soil feasibility, or even any catastrophic conditions such as the eruption of a volcano, or manmade problems of pesticides can affect how or if your gardens grow.

Take the time to understand the gardening zones map, and use any information you can find in books, or from a gardening provider to ensure your success with gardening.

Me neither! I hail from down under, way down in sunny Australia! If, like me, you live in that part of the world, then you can find out about gardening zones by clicking on the following map:

Or, maybe you live in Europe... if so, then visit this site:

Planting Zones for Roses in Europe

And, I'm sorry, if you live somewhere else in the world, then just type something like "gardening zone maps for XX", where "XX" is the name of your country or region, into the box below. You're sure to find what you need!

There's no excuse for not knowing your local gardening zones!

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