Hardiness zones and human adaptation - not a climate change thread

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by ciudad_del_norte

I live in a mature neighbourhood in Edmonton. Have 7 (dwarf) apples trees including "commercial" cultivars like McIntosh, Honeycrisp. I also have a pear tree, 3 sour cherries, 2 plums. Raspberries, blueberries, currants, haskap, highbush cranberries, rhubarb, and gooseberries. I think that's it, at least for edible perennials.

My parents house is similar. Every Mothers Day we plant a new tree or bush bearing fruit. 1x McIntosh apple, 1x crabapple, 1x black currant, 1x red saskatoon, 1x blue saskatoon, 1x gooseberry, 2x haskaps, ?x raspberries (fruit bearing weeds, essentially), 1x prairie cranberry, 3x rhubarb (legacy planting before the tradition), 1x chokecherry, 1x grape bush. I think we tried blueberries but we didn't have the sand necessary for it to thrive. We've been thinking about cherry or apricot this year but my mom is wanting to wait until the old mountain ash is down. So who knows.

[SpongeG]

dont you need a male and female of each for them to bear fruit?

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by speedog

From what used to be the Stats thread...
Really?

Then you haven't been to southern Alberta as there's plenty of cacti to be found there. The best are the pincushiins with their wonderful berries.

There's cacti in Northern BC and Northern Alberta too, very wide spread distribution in Western Canada.
It's when a province has an isolated population, especially in a spot that has restricted access from where it could have naturally originated from like in Lake Erie (interestingly, a lake that freezes over during Winter but is almost as far south as Colorado) that you know it's probably a man-introduced variety of plant.

Hawaii has cacti too but everyone knows that it was an introduced plant to the islands.

The cactus family is essentially New World in distribution, ranging from the Peace River Lowland of northern British Columbia (Opuntia fragilis) to Patagonia in southern Argentina and Chile (Maihuenia poeppigii). The only cacti that occur naturally outside the Americas are 3 subspecies of Rhipsalis baccifera (parts of Africa, islands off the southeast coast of Africa and Sri Lanka).

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/

[north 42]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

There's cacti in Northern BC and Northern Alberta too, very wide spread distribution in Western Canada.
It's when a province has an isolated population, especially in a spot that has restricted access from where it could have naturally originated from like in Lake Erie (interestingly, a lake that freezes over during Winter but is almost as far south as Colorado) that you know it's probably a man-introduced variety of plant.

Hawaii has cacti too but everyone knows that it was an introduced plant to the islands.


http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/

Ridiculous! Just stop talking already! There are multiple populations in Southwestern Ontario, they are not introduced! They are the northern extension of the southeastern US populations!
And Lake Erie only freezes over during extreme cold events, At temperatures much lower than what all,of the prairies experiences every year! Our record lows are also much warmer than Colorado by the way buddy, nice try though

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by north 42

Ridiculous! Just stop talking already! There are multiple populations throughout southern Ontario, they’re not isolated at all, or introduced!
And Lake Erie only freezes over during extreme cold events, At temperatures much lower than what all,of the prairies experiences every year!

oh, that's too bad Lake Erie gets "lower" (colder) temperatures than all,of the prairies experiences every year!
..I didn't know that.. now I know

lets try to stay on topic here.. this isn't a climate/temperature thread remember

[north 42]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

oh, that's too bad Lake Erie gets "lower" (colder) temperatures than all,of the prairies experiences every year!
..I didn't know that.. now I know

lets try to stay on topic here.. this isn't a climate/temperature thread remember

I meant warmer obviously! Stop pushing lies, and I’ll stop! By the way, It’s not a climate change thread, but climate and temperatures are what hardiness zones are all about!

[ciudad_del_norte]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

dont you need a male and female of each for them to bear fruit?

For fruit trees in general? Or a specific plant?

This is true of some plants, but not the case for most common fruit trees or shrubs that I know of.

What you may be thinking of is plants that aren't self-compatible. It's less of a male-female thing as much as the tree genetically will not fertilize itself and so won't produce fruit alone. This is the case with most apples or sweet cherries for example. This contrasts with many crababbles or sour cherries which will produce fruit alone no problem.

[lio45]

Lake Erie is shallow, that plays an important role in the fact it can freeze.

I've personally seen frozen puddles of water on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, much much further south than Lake Erie. (December of 2013, at the I-10 welcome center on the Texas-Louisiana border.) What does that prove? That the area can sometimes go as low at the freezing point in extreme weather circumstances, and that water freezes at the freezing point. That's all.

You compare Lake Erie to Colorado, you think a shallow, high-altitude lake in Colorado will never freeze?!?

[TownGuy]

Yep it all comes down to the depth of the lake. Lake Ontario is slightly north of Lake Erie and hasn't frozen over since 1934.

[geotag277]

That's nothing. I heard there was an entire field of ice in Africa on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Even in summer.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by geotag277

That's nothing. I heard there was an entire field of ice in Africa on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Even in summer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPTv5Hc04oo

Shit, I am turning into MolsonExport!

[TownGuy]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

There's cacti in Northern BC and Northern Alberta too, very wide spread distribution in Western Canada.
It's when a province has an isolated population, especially in a spot that has restricted access from where it could have naturally originated from like in Lake Erie (interestingly, a lake that freezes over during Winter but is almost as far south as Colorado) that you know it's probably a man-introduced variety of plant.

Hawaii has cacti too but everyone knows that it was an introduced plant to the islands.


http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/

I don't understand your argument? Every source has the prickly pear cactus native to Ontario but you think not? That it is contained to a small geographical area is quite meaningless also. Ontario has a lot of native plant species isolated to small areas thanks to human settlement and agricultural.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by TownGuy

I don't understand your argument? Every source has the prickly pear cactus native to Ontario but you think not? That it is contained to a small geographical area is quite meaningless also. Ontario has a lot of native plant species isolated to small areas thanks to human settlement and agricultural.

Yep, good ol’ alternative facts, lol

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by ciudad_del_norte

For fruit trees in general? Or a specific plant?

This is true of some plants, but not the case for most common fruit trees or shrubs that I know of.

What you may be thinking of is plants that aren't self-compatible. It's less of a male-female thing as much as the tree genetically will not fertilize itself and so won't produce fruit alone. This is the case with most apples or sweet cherries for example. This contrasts with many crababbles or sour cherries which will produce fruit alone no problem.

thanks, I wasn't sure how all that worked. I am surprised there aren't more crab apples planted in northern climates, I grew up in NE BC and our backyard neighbours had a crab apple tree so we got the benefit of the flowers in spring etc and the people kitty corner across the street had one, but maybe only a few in town were planted. I have seen a couple in peace river area but you don't see them in parks at all, all privately planted.

[shreddog]

FWIW, there are 2 cacti genera, and 4 cacti species, native to Canada:

Escobaria vivipara (a pin cushion cacti) and 3 Opuntia (the prickly pear variants) – fragilis, humifusa and polyacantha.

The largest ranges of indigenous cacti are found in the West – from BC to SK with some small native populations in MB. Over the years there have been claims to native populations elsewhere in ON, but for the most part, cacti in ON are only found within 25 kms of Lake Erie ranging from Essex to Elgin (the "Carolinian" counties).


DISCLAIMER: Though I am a trained horticulturist, specialized in xeriscaping, and have over 30 years in landscape design, I've never followed hardiness zones as biblical faith. For those you don't fully understand them (and their purpose), they really aren't that meaningful. Unless you're in yet another SSP thread arguing why you spot in the country is the best!

[giallo]

Kelowna has this rounded cacti with super sharp needles (we called them "jumping cactus" growing up) that grows in sandy dune-y areas around the city. We had these sandy areas behind my house growing up, and those cacti would do serious damage to you if you weren't careful. I remember one of my friends getting four or five cacti stuck in his hands (he was rolling down one of the dune hills), and him trying to removed them with his teeth. One of the cacti pierced him right through his lip. He was hysterical.

Even though we were only 10 years old, I saw that, and looked at that hill we would roll down, and thought, "I'm too old for this shit".

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by giallo

Kelowna has this rounded cacti with super sharp needles (we called them "jumping cactus" growing up) that grows in sandy dune-y areas around the city. We had these sandy areas behind my house growing up, and those cacti would do serious damage to you if you weren't careful. I remember one of my friends getting four or five cacti stuck in his hands (he was rolling down one of the dune hills), and him trying to removed them with his teeth. One of the cacti pierced him right through his lip. He was hysterical.

Even though we were only 10 years old, I saw that, and looked at that hill we would roll down, and thought, "I'm too old for this shit".

This is my foot two year ago walking around Osoyoos:

Walking through the desert... by Ian, on Flickr

Yeah, they are called jumping cactus because when you try to flick them off your foot the fly up onto your chest or arms!

A couple other of my pics from the Okanagan / Thompson Valleys:

Kamloops Cactus! by Ian, on Flickr

Juniper Beach Cactus by Ian, on Flickr

Prickly Pear Cactus Ashcroft BC by Ian, on Flickr

Also there are a few cacti found in the Gulf Islands and the southern tip of Vancouver Island.

[giallo]

^ That's them! Pure evil in flora form.

[LeftCoaster]

Ya I remember those little buggers from the Gulf Islands.

BC has a wide variety of hardiness zones, seems to be by far biggest range of the provinces from what I can tell, ranging from 2a all the way to 9b in parts of the south coast including Metro Vancouver and Victoria.

Most of Van is an 8b but parts range as high as a 9b depending on shelter and we used to grow some fun stuff at our place. Growing up we had a big ol fig tree that produced more figs than we knew what to do with and one year our banana tree even sprouted some teeny little bananas... they were awful though.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Ya I remember those little buggers from the Gulf Islands.

BC has a wide variety of hardiness zones, seems to be by far biggest range of the provinces from what I can tell, ranging from 2a all the way to 9b in parts of the south coast including Metro Vancouver and Victoria.

Most of Van is an 8b but parts range as high as a 9b depending on shelter and we used to grow some fun stuff at our place. Growing up we had a big ol fig tree that produced more figs than we knew what to do with and one year our banana tree even sprouted some teeny little bananas... they were awful though.

My Grandpa's family was Italian, so they all grew fig trees (in North Van). Since then, my dad took a clipping and transplanted it at our house in Maple Ridge around 30 years ago (there it grew wonderfully and we had delicious figs every August and September). Since then my sister has taken another clipping and transplanted it at their place. My aunt, uncles, and cousins have done similar transplants with it. So it is now literally our family tree. And we never gave them any special care in the winter.