On 15 Nov 05 at 8:40, Boyce Tankersley wrote: > I grew some of the Agapanthus africanus from Monrovia when I > worked in Fort Worth Texas. They lived but never bloomed or > thrived like I had seen them do in other parts of the country. > > I experienced the same frustrations when I was working on > Galveston Island, Texas. I spent a lot of time with the Sunset > Western Garden book to identify zones comparable to mine (with > salt spray, etc.) and then selected new/different plants. > Invariably they failed - I think due to relatively high night > time temperatures/soil pathogens. These remarks about the sensitivity of many plants to nuances of climate are always of interest, and point up that hardiness zones are only one factor, in many cases perhaps not the most important one. In this case, one critical difference between Galveston and any comparable location on the Pacific Slope is humidity. The Pacific Slope simply isn't a very humid place, even in winter and esp. in the milder climates. Look at San Diego, for example: it's next door to a full-blown desert. I'll even assert that even with all the fog, northern California locations aren't really *humid*. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island