Could those of you that use zonal id's please preceed it with either USDA or Sunset. I'm going nuts trying to figure out who's where. Sunset zones are easy to define and understand, but only cover the US. The USDA pictures of the zones on the internet are so small and fuzzy and hard to see where one ends and another begins and few state lines. We are all so spread out all over the world, it would be great to have a world zone map - is there such a thing? barb
Barb http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Articles/tempzones/index.html http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html If you want to generalize USDA zones to your area, you're going to want to know which temperature averages correspond to which zones, so here they are: Zone 1 Below -50 degrees Fahrenheit (-45.6 degrees Celsius) Zone 2A -50 to -45 degrees Fahrenheit (-42.8 to -45.5 degrees Celsius) Zone 2B -45 to -40 degrees Fahrenheit (-40 to -42.7 degrees Celsius) Zone 3A -40 to -35 degrees Fahrenheit (-37.3 to -39.9 degrees Celsius) Zone 3B -35 to -30 degrees Fahrenheit (-34.5 to -37.2 degrees Celsius) Zone 4A -30 to -25 degrees Fahrenheit (-31.7 to -34.4 degrees Celsius) Zone 4B -25 to -20 degrees Fahrenheit (-28.9 to -31.6 degrees Celsius) Zone 5A -20 to -15 degrees Fahrenheit (-26.2 to -28.8 degrees Celsius) Zone 5B -15 to -10 degrees Fahrenheit (-23.4 to -26.1 degrees Celsius) Zone 6A -10 to -5 degrees Fahrenheit (-20.6 to -23.3 degrees Celsius) Zone 6B -5 to 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-17.8 to -20.5 degrees Celsius) Zone 7A 0 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 to -17.7 degrees Celsius) Zone 7B 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-12.3 to -14.9 degrees Celsius) Zone 8A 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9.5 to -12.2 degrees Celsius) Zone 8B 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-6.7 to -9.4 degrees Celsius) Zone 9A 20 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-3.9 to -6.6 degrees Celsius) Zone 9B 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-1.2 to -3.8 degrees Celsius) Zone 10A 30 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 to -1.1 degrees Celsius) Zone 10B 35 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 to 1.7 degrees Celsius) Zone 11 Above 40 degrees Fahrenheit (above 4.4 degrees Celsius) Liz
Like most of the Puget Lowland, Anacortes is mapped in USDA 8. The last map was inaccurate anyway, with coastal zones pulled up over the Olympic Mountains and so on. Evenly dispersed waves or bands of colder or warmer climates of eastern topography where map originated different from choppy, mountainous topography of western North America. Note, as always, the temperatures ranges used are supposed to represent average annual minimum temperatures recorded in each zone. There is constant misinterpretation, with people putting themselves in the wrong zone based on the lowest temperatures they have seen where they live. The USDA Hardiness Zone temperature ranges are based on three concepts, not one.
To get easy-to-read closer views (link to example below) than provided by USDA web pages surf [your state] hardiness map. More than one other web site provides these. http://www.growit.com/bin/USDAZoneMaps.exe?MyState=NV