What Climate Zone am I In?
Q. I live in Santa Clarita, CA. up by Magic Mountain. I’ve always wondered exactly what “zone” this is considered??
A. Thanks for your wonderful email. It sounds as if you’ve got your priorities straight! By the way, the book you had in storage is 20 years old, but I am glad to hear how it helped you. (The second and much thicker edition, fully revised and updated, was published in year 2000. It is out of print, though you can still find used copies.) But now that you have morphed back into an avid gardener, why not look for a copy of my latest edition, “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month-b-Month,” published January 2010? In this book I tell readers honestly and exactly how to how to choose, plant, prune, and grow everything from fruits and vegetables to ornamentals of all sorts throughout the year, while managing pests and diseases in safe ways, without resorting to poisonous pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. As I described in the opening chapter, I was in on the very beginning of organic gardening, but now I feel the time for organic gardening has really arrived!
Regarding climate zones: Santa Clarita, Los Angeles County, is Sunset Zone 9. (For readers who may be new to the concept of plant climates, there are two systems of climate zones that help us to choose the appropriate plants for our gardens. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zones apply to the entire USA. These zones cover huge areas and thus are far less detailed and inclined not to work well here. I prefer the Sunset Climate Zones which are much more detailed and helpful in the West, and in California particularly, where our proximity to the Pacific Ocean combined with a highly varied topography produce a large number of significant variations in climate and thus a far greater number of distinctly different plant-climate zones than one might find in one of the central or eastern states of the USA.)
For a full description of Zone 9, see page 42 of the 2007 edition of Sunset Western Garden Book. Basically, Zone 9 is on of California’s thermal zones. Sometimes described as “thermal belts,” these areas occur on the sloping sides of hills and mountains and their main characteristic is that cold air drains off in winter and rising breezes keep them cooler in summer. Thus Zone 8, which is like a basin of land below, is likely to be colder in winter and warmer in summer. In winter, Zone 8 releases warm air upward and in a sense it “catches” the frosty temperatures that pour out of your zone into the zone below. This is lucky for you since you may be able to grow citrus and other plants that may freeze on the flat valley bottom below you. (Tule fogs are a characteristic of both Zone 8 and Zone 9. Stiff winter winds plague Zone 9, but many gardeners attempt to soften the winds by planting windbreaks.)
Good luck with your garden and may it provide years of pleasure to you and your fine family. I am also blessed with a wonderful growing family. My garden is in a new easy-care, drought-resistant phase and also it is now becoming a destination for visits by great-grandchildren and neighbor children, who enjoy climbing the steps and running around on the paths and discovering the garden’s various “rooms” to play in. In this way children encounter the changing face of nature throughout the year and one hopes they get hooked on gardening for life.
All the best for Happy Organic Gardening!
Pat
I want to plant “Incrediballs”…a type of hydrangea. I have failed with hydrangeas before in Anaheim, CA. Anybody have any ideas for success.
Anaheim California is in Sunset Zone 22, and hydrangeas (other than climbing hydrangeas) should grow in your climate zone with no problems whatsoever. Hydrangeas are easy to grow, but they do have certain requirements and if you do not provide these, then disaster awaits. Your failure with hydrangeas may have come from a failure to provide one of several necessities for healthy hydrangeas.
One is the exposure. If it is very hot in summer where you live, plant your hydrangea in partial shade, preferably against a wall on the east side of your home where the plant will get full sun all morning and full shade all afternoon. Morning sun is great since it is cooler and just when your plant has had enough it will be able to cool off in the shade. If on the contrary, you plant your hydrangea facing west, where it will get full shade all morning and full sun all afternoon then it will be comfortable all morning and fry in burning hot sun every afternoon. This is a recipe for disaster and the plant will burn and usually get sick and die, perhaps from spider mites that always attack plants put in the wrong places. In Sunset Zone 24, right along the coast, exposure does not matter, but where you live it does matter and hydrangeas definitely need to face east or they will die or do badly.
Secondly is the matter of soil. Hydrangeas like loose, well-drained soil with plenty of organic matter worked in. If your garden is solid clay with poor drainage, amend the soil and be sure to dig a coffee can full of gypsum into the bottom of the planting hole to improve drainage. If last time you failed to do this, chances are that your hydrangea died from root rot.
The third important necessity is water. Hydrangeas are not drought-resistant. They need constantly moist soil. So make sure that you provide adequate irrigation. If you only water once a week with the hose, put a watering can next to the plant, fill it with water every time you irrigate and then pour it over the roots half way between waterings. If weather is very hot you may need two or even more watering cans.
The last requirement is plenty of room for its roots. Hydrangeas will grow in the ground or in large tubs. If you try to grow a hydrangea in a small 8 or 10 inch pot, it will die.
And finally: Be sure to fertilize your plant. Our native California soils contain little nitrogen so it’s up to you to provide it. Feed your hydrangea throughout the growing season with a balance fertilizer containing bloom and growth ingredients. The variety you wish to grow, ‘Incredibals’ by Proven Winners, has extra large white flowers and these do not turn blue. Thus any good-quality, balanced, organic fertilizer can be used to feed it. But if you were growing a blue hydrangea you should be fertilizing it with Aluminum sulfate. Aluminum sulfate will turn hydrangea flowers blue if they are the type that will turn blue, or it will keep hydrangea flowers blue if you begin fertilizing in October with a solution of it, mixed according to package directions and keep it up every two weeks until bloom. Red hydrangeas and most white varieties also will never turn blue but most pink varieties will turn blue if grown in acid soil.
Pat Can you tell me what zone Campo, Ca is in. Its down by the Mexican bordor and the weather can freeze in the winter an be over 100 degrees in the summer. In reading about the different zones, I can’t figure this out as one zone just doesn’t seem to fit.
Campo, California is in Sunset Zone 7. You can figure this out by looking at the map on page 54 and 55 of the latest edition of Sunset Western Garden Book. Campo is not shown on the map but Route 8 is, and Campo is exactly south of the northward bump and southward curve on Highway 8, so you can see where you are. The characteristics of Sunset Zone 7 are described on page 41 of the same book. If you don’t have this book, you can purchase it at any book store or nursery or consult it at any library.
You are correct in surmising that the Department of Agriculture’s plant zones are utterly no help for Western gardeners because we have too many plant zones here. For example, according to the editors of Sunset, San Diego County has 11 different planting zones, but the US Dept. of Agriculture’s map showing the planting zones for the west puts Phoenix Arizona in the same zone as coastal California. This is obviously asinine. Due to this problem, Lane Publishing, the original publishers of Sunset magazine and books created far better plant zones for the west. Campo California shares the climate of California’s Gray Pine Belt and Oregon’s Rogue River Valley, and Southern California’s Mountains. You have sharply defined but mild winters and hot summers. You can grow flower bulbs, peonies, eastern lilacs, flowering cherries, and deciduous fruit trees, including pears, apples, peaches, and cherries. Grow these things and if you want a lawn try one of the new varieties of buffalo grass developed by the Dept. of Agriculture. It goes dormant in winter but is very drought resistant and easy to grow. By choosing these plants, you can have a lovely and productive garden.