Accurate climate or location details are compulsory

[Torsten]

During sign up you are requested to enter "climate or location" details. These details are a separate entry from your location details. If you do not want to reveal your location then you must enter an accurate climate description.

Below are the minimum data required to be entered:

Location

The standard location is used as a social aid so that people know where they are trading and communicating with.

The minimum requirement here is

1) if in australia: australian state

2) if overseas: Country

Climate or location

The climate/location field is used to help others and yourself with plant advice.

The minimum requirement here is:

1) if in australia: AU climate zone plus major feature [eg subtropical - coastal] or USDA climate zone plus major feature [uSDA 7 - alpine]

2) if overseas : USDA climate zone plus major feature [uSDA 7 - alpine]

Note, USDA climate zones only refer to absolute minimum temperatures, so don't provide a lot of information.

See here and here for AU climate zones.

See here for USDA zones.

This minimum amount of information is designed to not infringe your privacy in any way, but is vital in letting other people who read about your plant problems and triumphs know whether your methods might apply to them. By not providing such information your plant data is out of context and in most cases useless to the other members.

I will be randomly removing posting access for members who do not take this serious. This is an ethnobotany forum designed to help every member, so while some might think their creative loation details are funny, they are in fact simply selfish. Other quality gardening forums require similar information from their members and it is high time we took this more serious here.

[planthelper]

an other benefit of this is that, if we read a post about somebodies growing ventures (with climat details), we can take conclusions from this post which otherwise would not be possible. growing plants well is all about, understanding how they interact with our care in any given climat or enviroment...

a post saying, i do this and that, and my plants are thriving, is useless unless we know for which enviroment said experiences are suited.

the more information given the better, because min winter temps alone might be ok for colder climats if one is interressted in what will survive a winter and what not, but not sufficiant, to get a more complete picture.

for example, i observed pedros going dormant in winter in nsw locations which are frost free, but keeping growing in locations with frosts in winter, but located above the tropic of capricorn.

[PD.]

This may help.

Edited January 2, 2009 by PD.

[Ace]

While I think this is a very good idea, a lot of people simply dont know what climate their area is classed as (I was pretty clueless until I really got into gardening). I think PD's second map that shows the major classification groups seems to be the most accurate and would be very useful if everyone could go by (might be a hard task to get people to all go uniform tho). Otherwise yeah a simple broad location would be even better as terms such as Tropical / Temperate / Grassland can vary in average temps / growing conditions.

Simply saying 'cool' or 'mild summer, cool winter' does seem about as useless as posting 'the moon' or 'your mum'

[marsha]

i cant remember when i last posted anything useful or imformative do i have to put my climate details? i really should have all my posting rights removed!

[Torsten]

i cant remember when i last posted anything useful or imformative do i have to put my climate details? i really should have all my posting rights removed!

it might just happen if you don't fix your climate data.

[mac]

im right on the border line of semi arid & desert

so thanks for bringing it to my attention otherwise i would not have edited my details & actually looked it up

[Vertmorpheus]

haha, that smells really, really bad.

Doesn't make a lot of sense, either, from a few angles.

Delete away, or change mine to "launceston".

VM

[Torsten]

Like I said, I am serious about this. The cultivation informaiton on this forum reads like some disjointed chinglish gardening manual due to the fact that most people have no idea what the basic conditions of the poster are about. It's selfish and pointless and anyone refusing to provide that info gets suspended until they do.

There are plenty of optiosn to protect your privacy by keeping the climate general, so there is no reason for not providing that information.

[Legba]

Dear Torsten,

please forgive marsha. I sincerely believe she is poking her tongue out at those who don't realise she is Nomadic. I volunteer to punish her as u see fit. (no broomsticks were used in the 'purifying' of marsha)

As for my details, Sydney has been like Mackay over the last few days. Am i required to add more info other than 'Sydney" for the benefit of our dear friends overseas? (luv u guys )

Cheers

B

[Torsten]

please forgive marsha. I sincerely believe she is poking her tongue out at those who don't realise she is Nomadic.

But she is still a desert nomad!

As for my details, Sydney has been like Mackay over the last few days. Am i required to add more info other than 'Sydney" for the benefit of our dear friends overseas? (luv u guys )

LOL. I think australian postcodes or cities are just fine as location details, but some people don't like to reveal their location with quite so much accuracy, so the option is to use climate zones instead.

In sydney the problem is that you have quite distinct zones. you can't really compare the freezing and arid conditions in campbelltown with the subtropical coastal conditions in Bondi. I recommend to add a descriptor like 'coastal' or 'western'.

[momomoto]

Plant Hardiness Zones for Australia

http://www.anbg.gov.au/hort.research/zones.html

even has a little graph with U.S zones to compare

[Torsten]

Hardiness only covers absolute minimums, not other aspects of climate such as arid, coastal etc.

[planthelper]

haha, that smells really, really bad.

Doesn't make a lot of sense, either, from a few angles.

Delete away, or change mine to "launceston".

VM

how come this doesn't make sence to you? have you been to other plant and gardening forums?

it's standard proceedings, if we don't know where you live or how your climat is, we can't think of how to respond to a post,

the first thing for me is always, "where" lives this person....

apart from that, it make a big difference if somebody post's pic's about dozends of healthy and big pedros and than you realise they live in a cold climat. like this others can be made aware that, that is possible, and might want to try the same for themselves.

i know of pituri plants grown sucessfully in germany, and most of our attempts in oz failed, there is a message in this, your view stopps us from achiving what this forum is all about,

namly increasing knowledge.

Edited January 23, 2009 by planthelper