Hello Bill, I think everything on your list will grow in Las Vegas but perhaps not all will thrive. I tried echinacea because I love those big flowers but it did not bloom through the summer. I also tried the delosperma cooperi and it went away on me. I have had several different kinds of agastaches that I got from High Country Gardens and they grew and bloomed but never looked like thier pictures because the flowers faded in the heat until they were barely noticible. The salvias I have had good luck with and I grow Salvia greggii 'wild thing' that I just love as well as salvia officinalis (edible), salvia farinacea, salvia clevlandii (love the smell), Salvia Pachyphylla (California Native), and Salvia Penstemonoides (texas native), and salvia chamaedryiodes (true blue flowers). I love Salvia microphylla but they have croaked for me when it would get really hot. Guara does really well here and I have the white kind right now although I have had the pink form too. I have had success with some kinds of coreopsis but the threadleaf kind didn't make if for me and I don't grow any of them anymore. I had verbascum which I like but it was a two year plant for me and I like longer lived things. That said a plant genus you should really look into if your after showy flowers is the penstemons, I have penstemon parryi, baccharifolius, triflorus, superbus, and pseudospectabilis. They are great plants for here. A book I just got that is by Mary Irish the former director of public horticulture at the Desert Botanic Garden in Phoenix is called Perennials for the Southwest. This lady really knows what she is talking about so far as what will survive in the desert. Of course what I couldn't get to grow maybe you could, that's just how it works here. Oh, and I do try to put in a fall crop of tomatoes and hope for a late frost so I can get some before they freeze over. Early girl works well. Happy Gardening, Maria

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

Scott, Between the two of us, we are going to drive Pattie nuts. She and I had already communicated via private e-mail which, of course, you did not know. And, Pattie HAS read the stuff I've written about fall gardening, but she and I both think that fall gardening MAY BE significantly more difficult in her area's semi-desert location. I suggested she post her question here in the hope that Windsurfgirl or Tomatomanbilly or Sheepie (or any other western OK gardeners), could tell her about their experiences with veggie gardening in that region from mid-summer through the first frost. I believe that part of the state has significantly sandier, drier soil that has a hard time holding enough moisture and I know they tend to have significantly less rainfall AND lower humidity than we have here in southcentral OK. Pattie, Hang in there and I am sure Lynn or Billy or Bessie will see your questions and respond. Dawn

The Carrot Garden Diva thread lives. lol. They really are divas, ya know! Heather, I know that the dates for fall planting seem ridiculously early, but there's a reason for that. For the fall garden, we are facing a day-length (the number of hours of sunlight per day) that shortens every day, so that the more deeply we go into autumn, the less sunlight the plants get. The less sunlight they get, in general, the slower they grow. Thus, we have to plant them during the worst summer heat to ensure they have enough days with enough sunlight to produce a nice harvest in the fall. With the OSU Planning/Planting Guides for spring and fall, there is a statement in the spring one that says: "Differences in suggested planting dates range from the earliest for southeastern Oklahoma to the latest for the northwestern part of the state." The reason for that is that in the spring, southeastern OK warms up earliest and northwestern OK warms up latest. Unfortunately, they did not put a similar statement in the fall planting guide, but if they did, it would be exactly the opposite from the spring statement because in autumn, the cold weather arrives in northwestern OK first and in southeastern OK last. That's why I always advise folks here that the fall range of dates generally is applied with the earliest planting dates (when a range of dates is given) for NW OK and the latest for SE OK. However, I think that when there's a range, you can pretty much plant anytime within that range safely, based on the knowledge that the first frost/freeze of autumn does not always arrive at the same time every year. With carrots in general, they actually germinate much more quickly in warm to hot soil and more slowly in cool to cold soil. However, there is a point where it gets too hot for them. Based on research data from Tom Clothier that compared germination rates of various veggies at various soil temperatures, we know that the most perfect soil temperature for carrot seed germination is 77 degrees. At that temperature, 96% of your fresh carrot seeds will germinate within 6 days. If the soil is a bit hotter, you still will get an 95% germination rate within 6 days at a soil temperature of 86 degrees. Above that, the soil temperatures are so hot they begin to impede germination. At a soil temperature of 95 degrees only 74% of the fresh carrot seed will germinate within 9 days. If your soil temperature is hitting 105 degrees, 0% germinates. No matter what your soil temperature is at planting time in summer, there are ways to work around it. The most common one is to sow the seeds and then put a sheet or some other textile over the freshly-planted area to keep it shaded for a few days. Also, lightly mist the soil daily so it doesn't crust over on top and form a hard, crusty layer of soil that the young carrot plants cannot break through as they emerge from the seeds. I'm sure there are other tips in the Garden Diva thread that Amy linked, although it was written some time ago and I no longer remember what I wrote there. : ) You can take your own soil temperature using a soil or compost thermometer, or even a meat thermometer from the kitchen, or you can use the OK Mesonet soil temperature maps. I'll link one of the soil temperature maps below. Note that it is for soil temperatures 4" below bare soil devoid of vegetation or mulch. Since carrot seeds are not sown 4" below the surface, you can expect the soil temperature at the proper carrot seed planting depth to be a bit warmer than the 4" temperature recorded at your county's mesonet station or stations. Dawn https://www.mesonet.org/index.php/weather/map/4_in_bare_soil2/soil_temperature