Why I Oughta...

My entire gardening life, I've been a Zone 5B gardener.  That means that my gardens have all lived in the USDA Zone 5b.  Just search for [Zone 5b] here on my blog and hundreds of posts will show up.  And, I suppose that I never considered that the maps change over time.  But..but...but...they DO!  They change.  In fact, they change every ten-or-so years and the USDA just (a couple of weeks ago) released their latest maps - the 2023 map.  The last time they released a map was 2012.   What's different in this new map?  Well, for me:  A LOT.  I'm in a whole new zone.  So long, Zone 5b.  Hello Zone 6a.   Dr. Trent Ford - The University of Illinois State Climatologist has a good explainer post up  and talks about how the 5b/6a changes have taken place: The boundary between zones 5b and 6a, representing an average annual extreme minimum temperature of -10°F, migrated 60 to 70 miles north, from around Springfield in the 2012 map to around Peoria in the 2023 map. The boundary betwe

Nothing like a deadline to get you to fill your containers, right?  We were hosting a little Easter party earlier this month and that meant that Nat wanted our front porch container full of something.  What's that something this time of year?  Normally...pansies.   Like these:  When I was at the orange big box store, I also saw something more interesting:  ranunculus.  In a spectrum of colors including orange, red, yellow and pink.   I was, naturally, drawn to the orange ones.  Here's how things ended up:  12 pansy plugs in purple (let's call it blue, ok??) and six five-dollar ranunculus interplanted.   Last Summer, I went with pink and green .