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".

Bon, I expect it will get pretty miserable here on Sunday too. I think our worst weather at this end of the state will be Sunday and Monday. Right now our temperature is hovering at 33 degrees, but most of the rain has moved on...not that much fell, a little over a tenth of an inch, but any rain is good. I can see more rain on the Texas radar to our southwest but when it gets about a county away from us, it vanishes. That's the story of our year---rain vanishes when it gets close to us. I won't mind if the ice vanishes before it reaches us though. (grin) For the rest of the weekend, the weather is expected to be about the same as it is right now---with temperatures here hovering in the low 30s and rain coming through in little waves. The issue will be whether the rain falls while we are at 32 or below or if if falls when we are 33 degrees or higher. Thursday was an odd day. We had snakes out in the yard, which I'm never happy about, but it was oddly warm for this late in November. We made it up to 69 degrees before the cold front rolled in and dropped us about 30 degrees in three hours. Earlier in the day, when walking past the garden on my way back from the mailbox, I saw a watermelon in the garden. How I have missed seeing it before now is beyond me, but it looked whole and intact, so I brought in the mail (so it wouldn't blow away) and went out to the garden to pick the watermelon. We have been down as low as 19 degrees, so I figured it was rotted on the bottom, perhaps, and only looked good on the top. I picked it from the dead vine, and it was whole and intact. How crazy is that? After carrying the melon inside, I cut it in half, expecting the flavor to be poor because we had so much rain in October and early November. If the flavor was poor, I was going to feed it to the chickens. Nope. The flavor was good. In fact, it was great, so I celebrated the survival of the watermelon by eating some of it, and saving the rest for other family members. Then I carried the rind out to the chickens and they happily picked it clean of any remaining bits of red flesh. Enjoying a slice of the 'Harvest Moon' watermelon in the final hours before a brutal cold front arrived was a fittingly weird end to a weird growing season. The plant itself had roamed and rambled around the garden before the freeze got it, and had produced plenty of melons in the summer months, but none in the fall. I never thought it would have produced a melon so late in fall that would survive several freezing nights. I likely didn't see it before because cosmos and zinnias sort of surrounded the part of the plant where this melon was. Still, I walk by the garden every day on my way to the mailbox and I do generally look at it as I go by, and I still don't know why I didn't see the melon before now. Harvest Moon was probably my best producer in terms of pounds of melons this summer, although Yellow Doll produced a larger number of melons per plant. It is just that Yellow Doll is a really small melon. I hope y'all stay warm and safe up there, and that the ice misses your place, or at least that it melts quickly. Our driveway is a long, gentle, uphill slope, so when ice falls, we sometimes have problems getting up or down the driveway without sliding off of it. That is reason enough (I think) to stay home when it is icy, but Tim and Chris both are pigheaded and try to make that long drive to work in Dallas despite the ice. I've been waiting for a quiet day to sit and flip through the seed catalogs, and I am thinking that today will be it. Other than going outside to feed the animals after sunrise, I don't plan on being outside much. The wind chills are going to be brutally cold, especially since we haven't had enough cold yet for our bodies to get acclimated to the colder temperatures. We remain, still (and forever, it seems), abnormally dry here. I keep thinking we'll get a good 2 or 3" rainfall that will pull us out of drought for at least a week or two. Sadly, it isn't happening. Obviously it won't happen this weekend because the forecasted rain/ice amounts are really low (and I'm okay with that). Our local TV met said last night that all the kids hoping for a snow day today were going to be disappointed, and that their best chance of having a snow day here will be Monday. It seems ludicrous that we're talking about snow days in November. We started this week with an 80 degree day and I guess we'll end it with a 30 or 32-degree night. That sort of sums up Oklahoma weather in a nutshell. Dawn

You know you're a quilter when... ...the most important piece of mail in the mailbox is the latest issue of your favorite quilt magazine. ...you sometimes find little bits of fabric in your pockets and purse. "Oh, that's right. I wanted to find something that goes with this." ...you try to find ways to be super efficient with the chores, so that you'll have more time to sew. Or else you just neglect the chores until after you finish your latest quilt. ...your husband wants to wear his worn out clothes in the garage, and you think it's a shame to get grease on such nice fabric. (Besides, it would look so nice in the quilt you've been planning lately.) ...your hubby knows what you are talking about when you use terms like "four patch," "bear's paw," and "churn dash." ...you wish your family and friends would catch on to the fact that you'd rather have more quilting fabric than just about any other gift they think you need. (Who wants a T-shirt from Paris? How about some good, old-fashioned American calico?) ...you find that planning your next quilt as your fall asleep will practically guarantee sweet dreams.

I spent yesterday having a fire outside. Sunny all day and no wind. Merry Christmas to all you guys or happy holidays depending on what you celebrate. The gfs has almost turned cold a couple times but today it’s back to a warm pattern. near or above avg for a week and the first week of Jan looks very warm. The gem wants us 20-25f above avg like yesterday. I think we are going to skip the cold this winter. We are having the opposite forecast of all the Canadian weather sites. Currently 6c or 12f above avg in December.