The USDA updated the Plant Hardiness Zone this week, changing our zone to 8A. This is an example of how climate change is affecting gardens and farms throughout the country. We didn’t need a government to tell us. Record temperatures are announced in the national news and we feel the change.
This corner of south-east Virginia has been in Zone 7B for longer than I have lived here. Weather stations across the nation, including the local one in Wakefield, have recorded increases in minimum winter temperatures, which now stands at 10-15 degrees F. (-12.2 to -9.4C.) in our district. We have merged with neighboring North Carolina, which is still in Zone 8A.
Re-zoning inevitably lags after the facts. We haven’t had a bitterly cold winter for a long time. Moreover, plants we were advised are too tender to survive here now throw up green shoots in springtime.
My favorite is Lantana, a shrubby plant that dies down to the ground in the fall. Shoots appearing in May produce by late June waist-high leafy branches with abundant buds promising flowers to attract butterflies and wild bees in the summer. Even as I write this post at Thanksgiving, Lantana is still flowering outside. It seems as if our district has migrated to a milder place 100 miles further south, but of course, it’s the climate that has shifted. What are the implications for the distribution of wildlife? Will I live to see us join Zone 9, like Georgia, where they grow bananas?
