An excellent book, Plant Life in the World's Mediterranean Climates by Peter R. Dallman, has extensive discussion of the differences between the five major medit climates. I use lower case because I'm not referring to the Medit Sea. Highly recommend studying it. ISDN 0-520-20809-9, UC Press. There are other factors involved beyond the rainfall and temperature charts. You might also look into the Mediterranean Garden Society. We have four branches on the west coast of California. Three in California and one in Washington. The society's website is http://www.mediterraneangardensociety.org/ and our NorCal page is http://sites.google.com/site/mgsnorcal/. There is also a list serve with many knowledgeable people on it. The page for that is http://www.gimcw.org/forum/. I've been reading about this topic for many years now and gardening with medit plants and I find that to be successful with medit plants I need to create similar conditions to the home of the plant. Drainage and the right amount of water at the right time (and this changes over the life of the plant) is critical. Most Aussie plants, in my experience, require superb drainage, nutrient poor soils, and full sun here in San Jose. They are very touchy about water too. Hope this helps. Cheers, Bracey San Jose CA -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Michael Mace Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 11:31 PM To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org Subject: [pbs] What is a Mediterranean climate? We all know what a Mediterranean climate is -- it's dry warm summers and cool wet winters. But when you look more closely, the details vary from region to region. For example, the specific weather that people call "Mediterranean climate" is quite a bit different from the specifics in California. I'm convinced that many of our struggles to grow bulbs and other plants from Mediterranean climates come from an assumption that everything "Mediterranean" needs the same basic conditions. Lee Poulsen created some fantastic charts a few years ago comparing rainfall in various "Mediterranean" cities. When he graphed the rainfall in those cities, he found important differences -- some "Mediterranean" cities still get significant amounts of rainfall in the summer, and the length of the summer "dry" period varies tremendously. Lee's work inspired me to see if I could create climate maps of the Mediterranean regions, all formatted the same way, so we could easily compare climates from one region to another. After a lot of work, I've finished a draft of the maps and posted them to the wiki, with a detailed (maybe too detailed) explanation. I haven't linked to the page from the rest of the wiki yet, because I'd like to gather comments first. So the only way to get to the page is to use this web address: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… Some tidbits from the maps --South Africa and Western/Southern Australia have the mildest climates. --California probably has the harshest Mediterranean climate. It has colder winters and drier summers than the other regions. --Central Chile's pattern is similar to California's, although a bit milder in many areas. --Coastal Oregon and Washington have weather that resembles a Mediterranean pattern in many ways. Officially, climatologists do not classify them as Mediterranean, but for plant-growing purposes I think of them as semi-Mediterranean. The same thing applies to south-central Chile. --Europe is a mix of all the other regions. Spain, southern France, Italy, and Morocco/Algeria all have comparatively moist summers. The Greek islands and the Middle East have very dry summers. What it all means Here's what I think the maps are telling me about growing Mediterranean bulbs and plants in California: --Why do so many of my South African Amaryllid bulbs need supplemental water in the summer? Because they are used to getting some summer rainfall. --Why do many European bulbs naturalize well in gardens that get year-round water, when that kills bulbs from places like California? Because many areas in Mediterranean Europe get more summer rain than any other Mediterranean region. --Why do I have so much trouble growing Australian plants? Because they are used to warmer winters and milder summers than I have in my part of California. Even if I protect them from frost, planting them out in the garden with no supplemental water in summer is likely to put them under enormous stress. No wonder they grow better along the mild, damp coast of California. Questions for you: What do you think of the maps? Are there errors I need to fix? Things to add? Is this useful? Do you think this is appropriate to post on the PBS wiki? Thanks in advance for your feedback.