Subject: New Sunset Western Garden Book; Zone for Austin, TX help?

From: [email-masked] (Amy Moseley Rupp)
Date: 8 Mar 1995 00:04:34 GMT

ref: courier.urbana.mcd.mot.com rec.gardens:54972 sci.geo.meteorology:13251 austin.talk:327

Sunset includes Texas in its sales and discussions in its magazine,
but it does not give zone information for Texas.  Would those
knowledgeable be able to give a close match in climate in the
Western states (NM, AZ, CA, CO, UT, WA, OR are a few)?

>From the types of plants that do well here and the weather
information given in the book, my guess is that we are 8,
10, 12, or 14.  We have hot summer days but warm nights
and high humidity, and extremely erratic but usually mild
winters (60F - 40F are the average high and low of our
coldest month, January).

Below follows more detailed data.

Thanks!

USDA Zone 8

Record High: 109 F (hurts to type it)
Record Low: -2 F (hurts to type it)
Days Above 90 F: 105 (hurts to type it)
Days Below 32 F: 21.1 (that's more like it!)
Relative Humidity:  6 am:  83%; noon, 56%
Annual Wind Speed: 9.2 mph
Mean Max. July: 95 F (August a tad hotter)
Mean Min. January: 39 F (December about the same, with a warmup in Feb.)
First Freeze:  November 28
Last Freeze:  March 3
Growing Season: 270 days
Annual Precip:  31.9 inches

J	F	M	A	M	J
1.7	2.2	1.9	2.6	4.8	3.7

J	A	S	O	N	D
2.0	2.1	3.3	3.4	2.4	1.9

(rainiest months by far May/June and September/October,
beginning and end of school year)

-- 
Amy Moseley Rupp               108 Wild Basin Ste. 108, Austin, Texas 78746
Motorola Computer Group                 FAX:  (512) 329-7131
[email-masked]   alphanumeric pgr: (512) 933-5511, pgr 327117 (300 baud)
(512) 329-7117                 digital pgr: (512) 933-7333, pgr 327117

---

From: Jerry Young <[email-masked]>
Date: 9 Mar 1995 21:26:14 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> Dewey Coffman, dewey@stonelake
writes:
>I guess I'm confused as to what you are really asking here. We are
definately
>ZONE 8, but a damned HUMID zone 8. Ted Fisher talks about our Zone
occaisionally
>in his newspaper column, but maybe I misunderstood your question.

The Sunset Western garden Guide is an extremely useful plant
encylcopedia, and they break the zones down into micorclimatic regions,
and none of them exactly match out climate here. There are issued like
marine influece, humidity, avergae highs and lows, that tell you lots
more than the USDA zones. I think the information about zones is useful,
but we can't really say that we are in zone 3 or whatever. For example we
have wetter winters and springs than a lot of the similar california
zones, or we may not have the kind of nighttime cooling that otherwise
similar zones might (so, no ceanothus). 

Sure wish they would exapnd to cover our region,. Regardless, the Sunset
Western Garden Guide may be the garden book we use most.

Jerry