I regard my email inbox with the same jaundiced eye that used to be reserved exclusively for the telephone. As far as I’m concerned, these communication devices take up space in our house for my convenience, not anyone else’s. Over the years, I’ve perfected the selective deafness required to ignore phone summons (a trait inherited from my dad, the lone male in a six-person household, whose ability to tune out female voices was legendary). The insidious nature of internet technology is harder to circumvent. Email hooks me with written words. I’m the kind of person who reads everything: signs, labels, every word of anything I’m asked to sign. Ergo, it’s hard for me not to read something right in front of my face.
Yes, there’s a point to subjecting you to yet another of my peculiarities. The emails I’m having a tough time deleting lately have to do with fruits for fall planting.
Burpee’s started it. Cooks Garden and Gardens Alive! chimed in yesterday. It’s like they know my weaknesses and are out to make a few bucks off them. Opening these siren–song solicitations, however, led me down the unexpected path of discovering how many chilling hours the average Brunswick County winter is good for.
What’s a chilling hour? you ask.
A chilling hour is a 60-minute period wherein the temperature is 45°F or less. You add up all these hours between November and February, the result being a number that tells you how much cold weather you have.
What does that mean for my garden? you persist.
USDA cold-hardiness zone map for the Southeast |
In my neighborhood, for example, tulips, lilacs, rhododendrons, peonies and fritillaries cannot be counted on to produce the gorgeous blooms that are the reason we grow them in the first place. Why? Not enough chilling hours. We have the same problem with apples, raspberries and cherries. On the other hand, figs, pomegranates, okra and other native hibiscus (what? you didn’t know okra’s a hibiscus relative?) do well here because we don’t have too many chilling hours. Capisce?
No peonies for me |
Minimum chilling hours across the southeast |
Searching for chilling-hour statistics segued into learning about heating degree days and cooling degree days. I’ve seen those abbreviations on the National Weather Service’s almanac pages for years, and vaguely knew what the letters stood for, but not what they meant.
Which is…? you prompt.
Barrow, Alaska |
Miami Beach, Florida |
I hate math, you grumble. But I’m assuming there’s a payoff?
Well, maybe. Mostly I just think this stuff is fun to know, and I do like math. I found a really cool (pun intended) website called Degree Days that’ll calculate the number of HDDs and CDDs of any location with a reporting weather station, which usually means a controlled airport. Then I compiled a little table, comparing the HDDs and CDDs of six representative cities.
CITY
|
HDD
|
CDD
|
Barrow, Alaska
|
19,900
|
1
|
Los Angeles, CA
|
2020
|
638
|
Miami, FL
|
234
|
4510
|
Montreal, Quebec
|
7570
|
616
|
New York, NY
|
5050
|
1392
|
Wilmington, NC
|
2634
|
2120
|
Isn’t this neat?
Payoff? you remind me.
Pink Lady apples: yes |
Lapins cherries: no |
Now all I have to do is find a place to plant them.
Thanks for dropping by. Stay cool. Or whatever.
Kathy
Lilacs: maybe |
No comments:
Post a Comment