The person who criticized my posts for being too complicated, better just stop now. I guess it helps to remember the zones are 'USDA', which is the US department of agriculture and really has nothing to do with ornamental plants. Nein. Ornamental plants ARE part of the USDA's mission. That's why the National Arboretum is under their aegis. Remember wholesale nurseries definitely are a form of agriculture. The USDA zone system gives the barest measure of whether a plant can survive in a given area. Obviously, something hardy only in zone 10 cannot survive in zone 6. Beyond that, there are many other factors. The latest revised USDA zone map seems very accurate to me. I know of gardens along the Delaware river in NJ that really do seem like zn 7b. But it took a ridiculously long time to come out...considering the overall crunching of data probably took a few hours on a high perf. workstation or server. (in case you don't know, it's based on a climate model developed at U Oregon called "Prism") This was not some advanced climate simulation going on like trying to predict hurricanes. And given that computer technology has advanced so much including the algorithm development one would have to say the current USDA map reflects a certain lack of vision, though, again, at least they finally got it correct. By this I mean something like the Sunset system could have been developed, although there were problems with that approach if you try to extend it over the country. Rather than discrete numbers that could get ridiculously long for certain plants (i.e., this grows in 21, 33,34,35,36,37,38,40,52,61,62,63,64,75,78 etc) it could have used a series of vectors that graph a space representing the plant's preferences. Zones 1 to 10 would still be the first dimension of this system so you don't "break compatibility" with what we already have. The two main additional factors I would propose would be aridity, and summer temperature. There are several reasons for this; namely, there are already 2 factors certain nurseries use when selling plants. The AHS "heat zone" map exists, and is used by a few nurseries to show warning on certain species, and aridity scales have been adopted by Desert Northwest and High Country Gardens. Mind you these scales would not necessarily be linear and could code a sub-dimension, or even be matrixed to code an additional factor. For example it might make more sense for moisture to go: part of year arid - sporadic/none of year - all year - part of year but high atmospheric moisture. Because there are non-linearities in the way plants behave with respect to that, and with summer temperature. Some cool summer seasonal plants are actually known to grow in all year rainfall climates like England, but only with cool summers. The point is the arrange things in the way that leads to the most chances of solid groupings. Such mathematical shenanigans might make it hard for people to understand how to derive their own zone, but the point is it doesn't matter. They will get their zone off a map. Also different from the Sunset zones, there no need for a comprehensive, singular map because everyone will use some kind of smart device in the future that can easily click one location between 3 or more different maps. So a zone like mine would go from 7a (I think the a/b is of more limited usefulness than most people realize, though I have and will continue to reference the subzones) to something like 7J6. 7 being 0 to 10f min annual temp, J being a climate with rain all year but some expectation of brief droughts, and 6 being heat zone 6. Let's call it the Comprehensive Plant Zone. A _PLANT_ ranges, versus a gardening location, would go from "USDA zone 7-10" for a maritime climate plant like Eucryphia, to "CPZ (comprehensive plant zoning) zone "7H2-10M4" meaning that range of minimum winter temps, and a generally moist climate though accepting somewhat dry summers, as long as 3) the summers are cool. I would instantly recognize that I can't grow the plant because I'm off on one of the codes. Of course, this will never happen and there will be howls of "it's too complicated" but you can be sure in the early 1960s some hayseeds saw the first Harvard zone map and said "oh them fancy professors and their durn maps, I know what grows here and uh don't need some map." Also let's face that other than the big midwestern cities the net migration in the country is towards the SE, S & W where the USDA zone system is least useful. USDA system is most useful for telling people in Iowa there are many, many plants that they are far too cold to grow (sorry Iowans, someone had to be an example) than answering the question for someone in Phoenix, Arizona of whether a certain species of Protea could grow there. (and I reckon a couple of the most heat tolerant ones could) That a sunset zone map was made for the whole country is something I applaud, my idea just tries to make their system easier to use when dealing with a lot of customers and plants. Instead of saying "that only grows in 31, not 42" it's more helpful to say "your moisture factor of J is too much for an A-E plant, it will rot".

I like to think that figs are highly variable rather than view all the available data as conflicting. If you then factor in taste preferences, which are usually divided along the lines of those who like Brown Turkey types (Black Jack, etc) and those who don't, it's easy to see why some folks may get confused. The good news is that there are no bad figs (expect those that don't bare fruit). That said, I'm not sure if a long season fig is the right concept, and not in the same sense as apples and such. for a longer season you want to look for a variety with reliable breba crops and excellent main crops. That will give you the longer season most years, while weather and other factors will determine how long the main crop runs. This is why if you check out the DWN harvest chart, you will note that the fig section is a huge block with all the varieties lumped together. If you find a good breba crop fig you can start eating figs as early as June/July if conditions are right. VdB will keep going with main crop figs as long as the weather is warm enough into November. Some years there are figs left unripened or not pushed due to cold. Here is a link that might be useful: DWN Fruit Harvest Chart

Robert, So OKCE replaced Spencer in 2007? Now I am confused. Why did you use Norman's data instead of Spencer's old data that goes back to 1994? Is your weather more like Norman's than OKCE/Spencer? Just curious. I believe OU and OSU have the best Mesonet system in the country, but being an Oklahoman, I am prejudiced, of course. During bad fire years, I use their OKFire feature a lot and our county Emergency Management Director even showed me how to use one feature of it to input our data and see what the weather will be like as our FFs fight a large wildfire. It is wonderful because it can tell you when/how major wind shifts will occur, for example. Usually our Emergency Management Director will run the model and relay the info over the radio to the firefighters, but knowing how to do it ourselves makes us more independent (and the EM director does occasionally go on vacation, for example) and also lets us use smartphones with Internet access to acquire the data we need right at the fire scene. I know Scott uses the AgWeather feature some too. The OK Mesonet is very versatile. As far as datasets and developing some sort of predictive model, I can think of a couple of reasons that might explain why no one has created one. First, there's the issue of liability. No matter how many disclaimers they put on such a website warning people that the predictive model cannot guarantee stable weather after planting occurs and also doesn't guarantee success, there still would be people who'd want to sue because the model "told them" to plant, they did, and then lost their plants to late cold weather. You know it would happen. Secondly, I don't know how a model could take into account how wet or dry the ground is. Even if the soil temperatures are in the correct range and the air temperatures are appropriate as well, how could this sort of program account for different moisture levels at different soil levels. We can look at our soil moisture numbers on the OK Mesonet (or, LOL, stick a trowel in the soil and see how wet it is first-hand), or we can use Keetch-Byram Drought Index numbers (0=totally saturated soil, 800=totally dry soil) to judge how wet or dry our soil is, but I don't know if those numbers are widely available nationwide (they should be) or if they could be built into a predictive program. Because I have thick clay soil that holds excessive moisture for a long period of time, I cannot plant any seed if the moisture levels in the soil are terribly high or they'll rot before they sprout, especially in cold conditions. I know that, so I'd take my own soil moisture levels into consideration even in if I plugged in my data and got a "plant now" message. Less experienced gardeners might not understand how much cold, wet soil can harm their seeds. How do you put that into a predictive model? Finally, every seed varies in its response to soil temperatures, soil moisture and air temperatures. Some seeds can sit in the ground forever and eventually sprout. Others can begin to rot very quickly under certain conditions if they do not germinate within a fairly brief timeframe. I don't know how you could include data for every possible seed type. The best info I've ever seen in terms of seed germination temperatures was a table prepared by Tom Clothier that showed how many days it takes various seeds to sprout at different soil temperatures. I have found it very helpful, so I guess I'd better find it and link it here. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Tom Clothier's Seed Germination Data

"Bad time to have a less than desirable house in a less than prime location..." Or even a nice house in a less than prime location! We've had two offers but one of them turned out to be pretty much a joke, and the other has a sales contingency with absolutely no sign of their house selling anytime soon. Up until that offer put a contingency tag on our listing and after we started mandating drive-bys before making appointments, we had pretty good traffic through the house, but it's dropped off drastically to maybe one a week instead of six or seven a week, sometimes two or three a day. What's a "5-4-doors"? A lot of what's in our (low) price range is split level; I think they're very unattractive so I would only consider it as a last resort. It would have to be a VERY good neighborhood! "Yup, I must agree about sellers being in denial & keep listing higher than 2005, rather than lower." We're priced at almost $50,000 less than our house was appraised for by an independent appraiser in 2005. Ouch. (Thank goodness we didn't take the full cash-out when we refinanced, like the bank was pressuring us to.) But, there's a repo across the road dragging us down; it has "issues" and is even closer to the highway than we are, but it is larger by 500sf, has one more bathroom than ours, and is $14k less. We simply can't afford to drop our price commensurately. And yeah, the keeping-the-house-perfect is a real drag... we went out yesterday and I said to hell with it, left the bed unmade and dishes in the sink. I just didn't care anymore right then. I have to go get vacuum cleaner bags today, we've gone through an entire package of them since Memorial Day!