Hi Small Town Guy in Maine,
This is my standard response to people who want to know about Alaska--I've been up in Fairbanks since 1994. Sorry it's not more personalized. It's a crazy week at work, and I'm spending way too much time on the computer.

So you want to know about Alaska? Alaska is a huge state with a great deal of variability. For example, Anchorage, which is 400 miles south of Fairbanks (where I live) has weather similar to Buffalo NY (where I grew up). Anchorage is right on the ocean, and gets lots of snow in winter. It usually doesnt get terribly cold there, although they can see -20°F occasionally. It doesnÂt get hot in summerÂtemperatures usually range in the mid-to-low 70Âs in summer. The southern parts of Alaska are wetter with more rain and more snow, but breathtaking mountains and glaciers abound. Barrow, the northernmost city, is COLD. Temperatures in summer get to maybe 50 degrees, and in winter the AVERAGE temp is about -20°F.

Fairbanks is more variable. We are in the middle of the state, with no large body of water anywhere near us. Temperatures can get to -50°F or lower in winter, but I think our average is about 0. Summers can get up into the 80Âs or sometimes 90Âs, and are short, sweet, and intense. Even though day time temperatures can reach the mid 80Âs during the day, evenings usually cool down to below 60 at night.

DaylightÂcontrary to popular belief, it is not dark all winter long in Fairbanks. We gain or lose about 6 minutes every day all year long. Our longest day is summer solsticeÂJune 21stÂand we have over 21 hours of daylight. It doesnÂt actually get dark for much of June and early July. You can read outside at midnight, and headlights on cars are optional. After solstice, we start losing daylight by 6 minutes a day until Winter solsticeÂDec 21stÂwhen we have about 4 hours of daylight. Today we had about 3 ½ hours of lightÂthe sun rose after 10:45 am and set about 3 pm. We do have really long sunrises and sunsets, so civil twilight lasts a couple of hours more. (In Barrow, the sun sets in the middle of November and doesnÂt rise until the middle of January. On the other hand, the sun is always above the horizon from the middle of May until August.) I have found that the darkness bothers meÂI sleep more in winter, IÂm a little crabbier, and I have less energy. So it helps to force yourself outside when there is some light, and I have lots of south-facing windows full of lots of houseplants.

Our average planting date is Memorial DayÂpeas and lettuce can go in a couple of weeks earlierÂbut this past spring was so mild that most people had their gardens in by the middle of May. We sometimes get frosts into the end of May, but that is somewhat unusual. First frost typically is the first or second week of September, but sometimes there is a frost in late August. So, we can pretty much count on a 90-day growing season. Some years we get lucky and have a 120-day growing season. Most years are somewhere in between.

Even though we have a short growing season, some crops do beautifully. Cole crops (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage), lettuces, peas, and cooler-season crops do well. Tomatoes and peppers do better in greenhouses or in raised beds (the ground temperatures stay pretty cool). Squash does really well if you put down plastic mulch to warm the ground a little. Things like corn and melons are iffy. The long daylight hours make up for our cool weather and short seasons to a certain extent. Many flowers do really well here. In fact, I think the colors of many flowers, annuals and perennials included, are more intense here because of the cooler weather. (Apparently cooler weather makes flowers last longer and promotes the development of anthocyanins and other flower pigments.) Many tourists exclaim about the flowers that I help to tend at the Visitor Center, and are amazed when I identify the plants as normal pansies, begonias, impatients, and the like.

Our perennial flower selection is a little more limited than in the Lower 48, but there is still a wide range of things to grow. Fairbanks is known for delphiniums, columbine, Shasta daisies, and tiger lilies, but many more plants have been introduced to the area and seem to be thriving. This is my first year trying perennialsÂI just moved into my own home on New Years Eve, so IÂve planted many new things around the house, and IÂm looking forward to spring to see whatÂs survived. I planted a couple of Bleeding Heart (Dicentra) plants that did amazing this past summer, and I have high hopes for them. The Asiatic Lilies should do well, and so should the speedwell (Veronica), the snow-in-summer (Cerastium), globe flower (Trollius), irises, monkshood (Aconitum), and yarrows. The hostas and primulas that I planted are marginal here, so my fingers are crossed. I planted a bunch of spring bulbs at the end of SeptemberÂmostly Muscari, Squill, tarda Tulips (the little yellow ones), a bunch of dwarf irises, and some ornamental alliums. IÂve also got some shrubs planted on the east and west sides of the houseÂa Mock Orange, a spirea, a couple of different flowering dogwoods, and a dwarf blue willow. The Mock Orange is a gamble, and the willow may have been crushed by snow sliding off my roof, but the others should be fine.

Hope I answered some of your questions.
Emily in snowy Fairbanks

To know "everything" is a tall order.

a) Plants: Flowers that do very well here include: calendula, nasturium, montana centurea, marigold [if you can keep the slugs away], impatiens, lobelia

Shrubs: all berries [blueberries, red currant, raspberry, etc.]; rhodedendron [I have one about 13 feet x 13 feet high, planted it about 27 years ago]

Trees: I've planted 'exotics' like Douglas Fir and birch; each is about 25 feet high now, roughly 1 ft per year of age, but I started with 5 year olds; more usual are alder and hemlock

Edibles: peas and zuchini do well; I've been experimenting with cool-weather tomatoes; the winners on taste so far are TUMBLER and BALCONI for cherry-size; those were known to local gardeners; my own trials also turned up SILETZ as a great tasting [sweet/tart] 1.5" diameter, will grow outside. An inside grower almost as tasty, slightly thick skin, was SWISS ALPINE. Some grow carrots, others potatoes; a few try corn, even.

Variables: Local micro-climates, even yards away, can be quite different, depending mostly on whether a site gets light all day long, as the run rotates AROUND the sky, not across it, or only during part of the day. We get a lot of rain, often 100" per year, and nights [let alone days] are rarely over 60 degrees, so necessary for corn or tomato [most varieties].

Social seasons: We have 3 seasons here: legislative, from January to May, tourist, from late April to late September [cruise ship tourism has EXPLODED here, rising from about 230,000 annually in 1990, to about 900,000 in 2005], and dead, which some call 'local', from late September until January, however, lots of parties in early December, before people leave for the holiday Outside [as Alaskans call everywhere else] or in the Lower 48.

The Juneau Advantage: Juneau is an interesting mix of coast and mountain; we have 16-ft tides twice daily, which is pretty dramatic, sometimes more than others, and mountains not so high--3500 to 4,000 ft--but quite close to town, rising rapidly from the quiet Channel [connects to the Pacific, but actually IS pacific [calm] most of the time. Juneau is also, because it is the Capital, a mix of town type jobs [many still in Government, but in summer, in tourism also] and very much outdoors--in 5-10 minutes walk, you can be outside of sight of human habitation, depending on where you start and where you go. Like many capital cities [Washington DC for example], there is a 'political' life for some, which others--perhaps in retail trades, say--largely ignore. Juneau has quite a high education level, many here have Master's degrees, or used to, or more, and, if both partners work for government, quite a number of families have incomes over $100,000 annually ... but again, life can be very different and more difficult for those in retail or not in government. Federal govt jobs esp. pay best now; then State govt, then city...or so it's said, no guarantee.

Disadvantages: Housing prices have skyrocketed here in the past two years, as elsewhere across the country, because of the low interest rates that let to overbuilding and high demand for building materials and skills. The State seems about to waste a roughly $1 Billion surplus from oil revenue, oh, I mean 'intelligently spend on development projects'...instead of saving even half in the Permanent Fund [that pays dividends to each Alaskan and that really IS the biggest economic help to Alaska].

We used to have about the same number of bars as churches, but I think that, with the passage 10-15 years ago, of the automatic 3 days in jail for first offense drunk driving [DUI, DWI], the number of bars has gone down, and we still have about 1 church per 1,000 people, and, as we have 33,000 people or so, that's a lot of churches.

But Juneau is now much more segmented, or divided into subcultures, than it was in 1971 when I got here. There are 5-6 radio stations, when there used to be two, and 3 broadcast TV stations, and many more on cable, when then there was 1 [that played tapes from Seattle, that came up by barge about 6 weeks late]. Now people shop at Costco, Fred Meyers and a Home Depot and a Wal Mart are due shortly, when in 1971 everyone lived out of catalogs and had to plan 6 weeks in advance. Then, after you'd been intown a year, you knew 1/3 of all the 13,000 people; now, you still see many you know, but many also that you do not.

We are essentially an 'island' in that no roads connect anywhere. People usually drive 10,000 miles annually on the 40 miles of road we do have, and there are said to be more cars than people. Go figure. We had a great bus system, though it's been cut back some. Some wish there to be a connecting road, just because; others note that we average about 1 bank robbery every 10-15 years, regular as clockwork [no where to escaped to, you see]. We have great service--at equally great [high] prices--from our monopoly airline; in the old C.A.B. days, we had two airlines, go figure. Of course, back then, the State library was open all day; now, with all our oil billions, it's open only in the afternoons. Much that we seemed to do OK when we were poor, we can no longer afford now that we are 'rich'. But we do have the Permanent Fund, about $33 Billion now, which pays out half its earnings in equal shares to each Alaskan resident a year or more [well, most of 'em] ... until the Legislature or Governor 'raids' the Fund??? Hmmm...

Mind, I am not speaking as formally representing any of many groups to which I belong, just as a gardener. We had a fine fellow as Extension Agent; he moved recently, hope the new one is as good. However, that service thinks mulching won't work here, and I tried dried young glass clippings, before the dandelions had bloomed, and it worked just fine [green 'manure', no horse or cow involved]. Some people bury rotting salmon in gardens, or bury kelp washed with fresh water....

Enough info for now? Ask for details....which I may not know!!