The Variegated Thumb

We have received more than our normal share of winter precipitation this year.  I have spent my whole life in the same town, and I don’t really recall having more than 1 decent snow storm each winter.  This winter, we received a pretty good snowfall on Christmas Eve, measuring 8 inches in the middle of our front yard (away from any drifts).

Christmas Eve blizzard

Then we received an ice storm followed by 6 inches of snow last week.

Very thick icicle hanging from my greenhouse this week

In between those two snow storms our temperatures dipped down below 10 degrees Fahrenheit on three consecutive nights (6F, 6F, 8F).  We’re not really used to these temperatures, but I was thinking about our USDA hardiness zone.  I am located in zone 7a, which is rated for winter temperatures between 0 and 5 F.  This is one of those winters that makes our hardiness zone rating seem appropriate.  I would say that in the average winter, our minimum temperature is probably somewhere around 15 degrees F, but the USDA zones aren’t set up by average minimum temperatures.  You don’t want to plant a tree and expect it to survive in your zone only in the years that are above average.  You want it to survive 50 years or more.  So the USDA zones are set up by using long-term historical climatic minimum temperatures.

I discussed in a previous post how the hardiness zones only tell a small part of the story, but I would like to mention that again here.  The hardiness zones only tell you whether a plant can brave your winter minimum temperatures, not whether they will be happy with your amount of moisture or sunlight or long, hot summer days.  Some efforts have been made to construct other zone maps for variables like humidity and heat index.  Once these maps have been constructed and distributed to plant people, nurseries will need to start to label their plants, in order for them to be useful.  I know that there are a number of plants which can survive our winters, but would not like our heat waves when the temperatures can be above 100 degrees F for a week solid in the middle of the summer.

Hopefully these new maps will be circulated soon and start getting used.  It might seem like a lot of numbers to keep up with, but I can envision a 3 map system, where you just always remember you are a “7-5-8″ or something like that.  If the order is kept the same (cold hardiness, heat index, humidity), it will make this new system user friendly and could help a lot of new gardeners.

You may or may not know that I am a meteorologist and software developer by trade.  Recently I decided to merge my occupational and recreational activities.  I have setup a new page here on the blog that shows the temperature and humidity (in the form of dewpoint temperature) of the environment in which my plants are growing.  You might have noticed the new link in the Pages section of the right panel –>.

(click for larger version)

The plot is called a meteogram, which means that it has meteorological data for a particular location, plotted on a time axis.  So you can see how certain variables (temperature and dewpoint, in this case) have varied over the last 24 hours (or however long the time axis spans).  Here is an example of a more detailed meteogram, produced by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey.

My meteogram is on the blog for a couple of different reasons:

1. First and foremost, I think it’s cool.
2. Other people can see what the temperature is like where my plants are growing.  You might think that you could just look that up on the internet, but you can’t.  My plants move in and out of doors, based on what time of year it is.  Also, I’m hoping to build a greenhouse one day, and the plants (and sensors) will be moving in there when it gets cooler outside.
3. This will help me monitor the environment of my plants - even when I’m not at home.  [Not that there's much I could do about it if I noticed that the temperature had plummeted and I was out of town.  But, hey, maybe I would call a family member and talk them into helping me out.]

The look of the meteogram is likely to change over the next couple of months.  I might add more sensors to my little weather station so that you can see how the temperature varies between the different locations where I have my plants - indoors, outdoors sun, outdoors shade.  Hey, maybe I’ll even get some fancy stuff, like an anemometer (wind gauge), and plot that data as well.

The plot will always be available on the “Plant Weather” page, and is currently being updated once each hour.

What do you think?

This is just a quick post to show how my garden waterfall looked most of last week with our winter weather.

My garden waterfall in winter

We had ice pellets, sleet and just a little bit of freezing rain that resulted in a good 3-4 inches of ice accumulation that stayed for more than a week in many places.

The waterfall slowed to a trickle for most of the week, as much of the water was frozen.  By the end of the week, it became a roaring waterfall again as melt water from the roof flooded the waterfall and caused even the ice in the shade to melt.

[For any curious readers, I leave my waterfall on a timer year-round.  It clicks on and starts running around 7:45 am and turns off around 7 pm or so.  During the summer I extend the time so that it turns off around sunset (as late as 9 pm).  I don't have to worry about freezes because the pump that recycles the water is about 3 feet down and even when the temperature drops down into single digits overnight (on a rare occasion), the water usually stays liquid at a depth of 3 feet.]

If you missed my post on building my garden waterfall, you can read it here.