Fellows

Most of the gardening world will be familiar, at least from books, with the issues facing a Zone 8 gardener, since most of Britain - perhaps the world's most obsessive gardening nation - is Zone 8, apart from a warmer band on the south coast and a colder strip in the Pennines and Scotland. British gardening books seem to show up in bookshops all around the globe: the turnout is enormous. A good deal of western Europe also claims the Zone 8 classification and translated British gardening guides are a stock item in continental gardeners' bookshelves. Most of the mainland United States is not blessed with such mild winters, and the majority of US gardeners must get by employing hardier plants. Austin TX, San Antonio TX, Tucson AR and Portland OR are cities which are rated Zone 8. In Canada, only the Vancouver area is Zone 8. Central China around Nanjing would also rate as Zone 8, but I am not aware of a great deal of western exchange of experience with gardeners there, although China has provided many of gardening's finest flowering plants. Large sections of Japan are technically Zone 8 as well. In the southern hemisphere, the area southwest of Buenos Aires and centrally located towns on New Zealand's South Island, such as Queenstown, also belong to the Zone 8 community.