The previous post about registration not being necessary was prompted by an email I got:
Hi! I registered to be a part of your Zone 1-3 group and I haven’t heard yet
whether or not I was accepted. Last I checked my membership was still pending.
Wondering what is up and what I should do to remedy it. It’s been over a week
by now I believe. Thanks. Love your site!
Since I don’t run a group, I was perplexed as to why I was getting this email. Was it some new kind of phishing attempt? Or if it was a lost soul on the World Wide Web, where should I point them to? I decided to respond on my blog. Much to my relief, my correspondent figured it out for him- or herself, and enlightened me as well:
I was mixing your site up with a Cold Zone
Gardening yahoo group. Somehow I was getting to one site from the other. Again
my fault and my apologies.
Now my curiosity was piqued. I went over to Yahoo, put Cold Zone Gardening in the Search box, and found four different Yahoo groups related to cold climate gardening. Ya learn somethin’ new every day! Maybe one of them will be a good fit for you. Myself, I don’t qualify for one of them, as I am further south than latitude 48. I’m in the process of adding them to my Cold Climate Links section, but go ahead and check them out right now.
I think the owner of the Latitude48 Yahoo group would agree with you. She is in Zone 8 herself. When I investigated further and actually read the group description, the emphasis was more on coping with the low levels of light than on temperature.
How funny–Latitude isn’t everything. Though I am north of 48 (48’69”) & definitely in a cold zone, there are colder places south (think the Tetons in south Idaho or high in the Colorado Rockies) and lots of places more northerly that are warmer–along the coast of BC to Alaska for example (which often if not usually is warmer than we are in the winter). Altitude & local geography (sea shore, Hells Canyon, nearness to a glacier come to mind) all have powerful influence on local climate. Lewiston ID, near Hells Canyon (Idaho tourism laws mandate that here I mention Hells Canyon is deeper than the Grand Canyon) is very warm compared to the rest of the state as its elevation is so low. You won’t find much snow there in the winter,it rarely freezes and is scorching in the summer–but it’s north of 46 (46’40)–compare to Duluth MN at nearly the same latitude. The plants you can grow in Lewiston! But then, the rattlesnakes & black widow spiders are less thrilling to me.