Inside: One important factor in planning your garden is knowing your microclimate. . . Never heard the term? Learn all about it in today’s post.
If you’re like me, you’re in the beginning stages of garden planning. Spring is taking its time putting in an appearance, so the good news is that if you are a procrastinator, you’ve got some time to do this garden thing up right. Which brings me to an important point to ponder while in the planning stages–your microclimate.
What is a microclimate? I looked the term up in several different dictionaries, searching for a definition which most closely reflects our gardening purposes. Encarta won out with this entry: the climate of a confined space or small geographic area. The small geographic area we’re talking about today is your yard.
As most gardeners both newbie and seasoned know, the regions of the US are divided into planting or hardiness zones. In case you’ve never heard of it, a hardiness zone is a geographically defined area in which a specific category of plant life is capable of growing, as defined by climatic conditions, including its ability to withstand the minimum temperatures of the zone. That’s just a fancy way of saying certain plants grow in certain areas because of how hot, cold, dry, and humid it gets. In other words, what grows in Naples, Florida, likely won’t grow in Fairbanks, Alaska. If you consult a hardiness zone map, you will see where your location fits. For example, my location is in zone 6a. This is a good rule of thumb to go by when purchasing plants for your yard.
So how does a microclimate come into play? Your yard is affected by the amount of light, temperature, wind exposure, slope of your land, closeness to buildings, and trees. For example, in my yard I have a large tool shed blocking much of the west and the land gradually slopes down to the east. The garden is located in the southeast corner, so it gets a good amount of sun, but because of that slope, patchy frost will often settle in, whereas the northern side can withstand it because the land is even and we have a line of large trees. But that area gets limited sun. Beds up against my home get more warmth. While water generally trickles down the sloped garden area, if it’s a particularly rainy spring, the water can collect, which spells disaster for my peppers. We’ve had several wet springs, so I’ve had to make adjustments in recent years, one of which is to move the peppers to a hay bale raised bed.
How do you work within your own microclimate? You probably know more about your yard than you think, but taking notes throughout the season will give you a record of useful information for future garden plans. Keep track of what plants work where. Pay close attention to the directions on the plant stick stakes before you purchase, and take into account the nuances of your various garden beds–amount of sun and shade, susceptibility to early frost, water run off, and proximity to buildings and trees.
And next time you are among folks talking garden, throw out the word microclimate and watch everybody admire your garden savvy!
What’s your microclimate like? Tell us about it in the comments.
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