One of the first questions gardeners ask other gardeners is “What zone are you?” This is no simple tree-hugging term. Your gardening zone determines what plants will survive in your garden. You can try and fool Mother Nature, but your gardening zone is pretty well determined by where you live and you have to learn to deal with it. But first you need to understand what it means. If your plants mysteriously don’t return year after year and you find yourself skimming over the numbers in the seed catalog, here’s all you need to know about gardening hardiness zones. (It’s color coded. How hard can it be?)

Photo: © USDA. Used with Permission.