Guest Post by veterinary surgeon and master gardener James Roush / Garden Musings
The copious rainwater two week ago was enough to green up the buffalo weed and provide some much needful stand-in to the perennials here in Kansas . It also bring some ease to arena gardeners , not from the swelter heat , which continues to accentuate my garden and its gardener daily , but it did provide a hiatus from daily watering chores . This was enough to lure Professor Roush to put some roseate bands for evenfall planting . I like to plant own - root roses , even untried bands , in the dusk in Kansas as the cooler weather condition and higher rain gives them a full start next year before the heating plant hits .
I had a neat afternoon in the air - check indoors , choosing rose varieties online and planning the layout of a new bed . Imagine my surprise , however , two days after place an online order with Rose Paradise ( not its real name ) , when I received a yield email thank me for my parliamentary law and informing me that it would be guard until next spring because Rose Paradise had ceased shipping to my area for the fall . When I get through the glasshouse directly , they explicate that it was getting too cold to transport to my arena and the rosiness would n’t have time to become establish before winter .
I think it is a overconfident development that mail - order nurseries have amply taken poster of the USDA Hardiness Zones and are seek to keep horticultural idiots from planting medallion trees in USDA Zone 2 in September , but it is past time for these nurseries to also begin taking note of theAHS Heat - Zone map . On it , one would find that my part of Kansas is presently listed as AHS Zone 7 , meaning that it has 61 - 90 days annually where the temperature is above 86˚F. And the current AHS Zone Map was base on data point from 1974 through 1995 and has not been update . Given the changes of the 2012 alteration of the USDA zones , I ’m probably now in AHS Zone 8 or 9 , with somewhere ( I ’m guessing ) around 120 - 150 annual day of > 86˚F heights . consider me , please , when I tell you that I ’ve got stack of metre left before Christmas to get new rose wine establish .
Recently , at Walmart , I tried to purchase a rooter and had a storage employee tell me ( on a 102˚F day ) that they were no longer selling fan because it was getting too cold . I grant the customer overhaul representative at Rose Paradise the same response I yield that misguided Walmart employee — I aim out that ( after a present moment of silence during which I labored mightily to tranquilize myself ) it was still enough tender here and would belike continue so for some clock time . Fortunately , in term of my future purchase from it , the Rose Paradise employee cheerfully informed me that they would be beaming to go in advance and embark my order ; however , the rose would not carry their normal guarantee . Jumping forward to the oddment of this story , in my garden on this day there are 9 young roses trying to survive the anticipate 99˚F eminent .
My point here is a plea to all mail - parliamentary law baby’s room to give consumers the welfare of the doubt , as long as we do n’t titter fiendishly or otherwise present latent plant life - icidal tendencies , and allow us decide when we want plant render . It would also be skillful if the AHS would update their Heat Zone mathematical function , and if all nurseries would take a closer flavour at it , but that is in all probability too much to expect . Gardeners know our climate well and , in fact , I have similar issue trying to get nursery to send off me industrial plant in the spring before my climate gets too hot for planting . I do n’t postulate any wide warrant because as long as I incur the industrial plant in good precondition , I ’m never going to claim a last was the nursery ’s shift three months later after I ’ve forgotten to water the fiddling seeding . I bang full well who deserves the blame for numb industrial plant in my garden .
