Gardening Basics: Pansy Tough
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at
12:01 am
Click here to find out just how tough and useful in the garden the humble pansy is.
Tagged with: Gardening How-To • gardening tips • Pansy • Winter Hardy • Zone 7A • Zones
Filed under: Annuals • Gardening How-To
Ah, an explanation for the zones. If I understand you correctly: I live in Beltsville, so I can plant anything with a zone range of 1-7? But anything 8+ will not survive our winters?
And when a plant is labelled simply for zone 6, it means nothing lower than 6 or nothing higher than 6?
Ocean
The traditional zones refer to winter hardiness, so you are correct. A zone 8 plant can not be counted on to winter over. It might in some winters but not reliably. The map now goes into a little more detail, with zone 7A and 7B, with 7A a bit colder. I believe in Beltsville we are 7A.
But the recommendations are still pretty much in whole digits, so you are unlikely to see something rated 7A or 7B.
So, winter wise, if it says it’s a zone 4 plant, or zone 5 or zone 6, it should reliably overwinter in Beltsville. Zone 7 plants should for the most part overwinter. Zone 8 might overwinter with protection. Zone 9 or 10 are highly unlikely to overwinter.
Dr. Marc Cathy, formerly of the US National Arboretum and American Horticulture Society, felt that the zone map only gave part of the picture. When he was at AHS, they released a heat zone map. I have to say I’m not as familiar with it as I should be. But it rates plants for summer heat tolerance.
Here’s a link on the heat zone map.
http://www.ahs.org/publications/heat_zone_map.htm
A plant that is cold hardy in an area may not tolerate the summer heat well, especially as you head south into say, Georgia.
Hope this helps.
Larry Hurley