Michael. I think that you're absolutely right. We rarely examine the boundaries of what we regard as equivalent categories. And it leads to great mischief: Example: the idea of god really got a lot of Arab 'knickers in a twist" when they learned that Christians in their country referred to god as Allah (which they'd been doing regularly in their prayers for centuries with theological permission from the local imams and mullahs. Closer to home we have Sarah Palin claiming that Rahm Emanuel should apologize to parents of of developmentally delayed or impaired children, for his outburst and frustration with foot-dragging democratic colleagues. Why? Because she is acting as if the word "retarded" means only what she thinks it means, in HER self-centeredness, ignoring everyone else's self-centeredness. It was a perfectly good word for the DD kids until kids began using it as a word of rejection in the schoolyard. . It's still good, my watch is retarded, i.e., it's running slow We have stopped forming complete sentences and leave too much to be assumed in a sentence... as if everything we say fits some kind of headline announcement, If I am offending somebody here with my comment --so be it! Selah! Amen. It's part of what's gone wrong with the country as a whole. The specifics of education in the English language have become foreshortened, truncated, and lost. Maybe less on this list, where some people even know what diacritical marks are, and know that Spel Chek cannot be relied on for usage in place of a good copy editor. Creeping mediocrity has breached the gates of common sense so that common sense has not been common since the late 1890s and is no longer common. Witness the recent Chinese collapse of an entire 13 story apartment house complex. The builders probably know calculus (out of a book) but don't understand the basic physics that a 1st grader in a sandbox knows and applies. So my motto and recipe for contining this is: GO NUCULAR and it'll be gauranteed. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Mace" <mikemace@att.net> To: <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 1:31 AM Subject: [pbs] What is a Mediterranean climate? > We all know what a Mediterranean climate is -- it's dry warm summers and > cool wet winters. But when you look more closely, the details vary from > region to region. For example, the specific weather that people call > "Mediterranean climate" is quite a bit different from the specifics in > California. > > I'm convinced that many of our struggles to grow bulbs and other plants > from > Mediterranean climates come from an assumption that everything > "Mediterranean" needs the same basic conditions. > > Lee Poulsen created some fantastic charts a few years ago comparing > rainfall > in various "Mediterranean" cities. When he graphed the rainfall in those > cities, he found important differences -- some "Mediterranean" cities > still > get significant amounts of rainfall in the summer, and the length of the > summer "dry" period varies tremendously. > > Lee's work inspired me to see if I could create climate maps of the > Mediterranean regions, all formatted the same way, so we could easily > compare climates from one region to another. After a lot of work, I've > finished a draft of the maps and posted them to the wiki, with a detailed > (maybe too detailed) explanation. > > I haven't linked to the page from the rest of the wiki yet, because I'd > like > to gather comments first. So the only way to get to the page is to use > this > web address: > > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… > > > Some tidbits from the maps > > --South Africa and Western/Southern Australia have the mildest climates. > > --California probably has the harshest Mediterranean climate. It has > colder > winters and drier summers than the other regions. > > --Central Chile's pattern is similar to California's, although a bit > milder > in many areas. > > --Coastal Oregon and Washington have weather that resembles a > Mediterranean > pattern in many ways. Officially, climatologists do not classify them as > Mediterranean, but for plant-growing purposes I think of them as > semi-Mediterranean. The same thing applies to south-central Chile. > > --Europe is a mix of all the other regions. Spain, southern France, > Italy, > and Morocco/Algeria all have comparatively moist summers. The Greek > islands > and the Middle East have very dry summers. > > > What it all means > > Here's what I think the maps are telling me about growing Mediterranean > bulbs and plants in California: > > --Why do so many of my South African Amaryllid bulbs need supplemental > water > in the summer? Because they are used to getting some summer rainfall. > > --Why do many European bulbs naturalize well in gardens that get > year-round > water, when that kills bulbs from places like California? Because many > areas in Mediterranean Europe get more summer rain than any other > Mediterranean region. > > --Why do I have so much trouble growing Australian plants? Because they > are > used to warmer winters and milder summers than I have in my part of > California. Even if I protect them from frost, planting them out in the > garden with no supplemental water in summer is likely to put them under > enormous stress. No wonder they grow better along the mild, damp coast of > California. > > > Questions for you: > > What do you think of the maps? > Are there errors I need to fix? Things to add? > Is this useful? > Do you think this is appropriate to post on the PBS wiki? > > > Thanks in advance for your feedback. > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/