# USDA zone site..



## HoppeEL4 (Dec 29, 2010)

I was wondering what actual zone I was in, and looked it up on Google, this brought up this option. I though it was really useful, and could help me decide what would do best here. The zoning used to be pretty basic, but seems they have broken it down even more. Subclimates everywhere even in my own state.

http://www.plantmaps.com/


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## AlabamaGal (Dec 27, 2011)

The USDA zone maps have been recently updated (as in last month) and are much more precise and based on a lot more data than the old ones:
http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/

Interactive version: http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/InteractiveMap.aspx


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## HoppeEL4 (Dec 29, 2010)

I was impressed with it. Used to be Oregon was just a few zones, and this was so inaccurate (for a state of about 97,000 square miles, and numerous climates and landscapes). We have mountains, high desert (this is 2/3 of the state actually), scrublands, grasslands, coastal, lush temperate rainforests.....and to have us at only about 3 in the past did not serve the gardeneners or farmers real well.

I have done a lot of reading and researching lately, in order to arm myself so I can better prepare and plan our gardening and what should work best here, so this was really helpful.


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## AlabamaGal (Dec 27, 2011)

The plant maps site doesn't have the new USDA zones, but the old maps didn't split into "a" and "b" designations, so I'm not sure what they are using.

You may want to look at the Sunset maps, too; they were designed to handle the varied kinds of climates out west instead of just the freeze dates.


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