On 20 Nov 2009, at 10:12, J.E. Shields wrote: > How about approaching this from the point of view of what species are hardy in a > given location, e.g., central Indiana in my case? It strikes me that a deeper, and possibly more interesting, question is the identification of hardiness indicator plants. A good start on this issue would involve those interested listing plants that don't quite make it, rather than those that do survive. Also, let's define hardiness more broadly than just frost-hardy. For example, in my former marsh, a great many Japanese plants are not hardy because they cannot handle the wintertime sogginess. There is an obverse to this, plants that demand summer water to survive. Cyclamen cyprium is an example here. It is currently surviving in a sheltered planter with overhead protection against the rain, but when we had an exceptionally cold winter, it failed in another sheltered spot after about 10 years success. Teucrium fruticans is another indicator. It thrived for years, but last winter put paid to it, even though we only had a couple of nights of seriously cold weather. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island http://maps.google.ca/maps/…