Hi Freezengirl. I'm down in Southeast. We used to consider our zone as 5, but it's warmed over the years, and now it's 6a. Still, we have the cool summers that you do, so I think our gardening should be pretty similar.

From what I understand about this area, I suspect you are correct. I am only maybe 100 feet above sea level so I am thinking I may possibly be as much as a zone 5-6, but further up the hill I know it has to be zone 3-4. I am trying to convince myself to try the Orienpet Lily variety here but because they are so expensive would really like to talk to someone with experience first. Asiatics do well here so I am okay with them. I am having a terrible time finding reliable sources/information on plants for this area for people like me that like to experiment. They do have a fantastic garden club though!

Funny, how down here in Saskatchewan it never dawned on me that you'd have a better growing zone in Alaska than we do.

I never picture Alaska as being close to the ocean and having nice weather.

I never did either! Can you imagine my shock coming from the MN/Ontario border country to Alaska and finding it much warmer winters? I tease my daughter and friends back in MN all the time when they are griping. Only Northerners could I think appreciate the irony of wintering in Alaska as an improvement, perhaps I should have been more specific when telling my DH I wanted to go west in the winters. :-) It does have some challenges I couldn't have anticipated with gardening. Though it doesn't get that cold comparitively, it also doesn't get that warm. Low 60's about top temps in the summer with lows in 40's. So far this winter the snow doesn't seem to stick well though I know it can accumulate. I suspect frost heaves to plants and bud freeze would be an issue here. It looks like a lot of the zone 2/3 type fall bloomers I am familiar with do not do well here. Lots to learn!

Where were you from, freezengirl? I'm in NWOntario, north of the MN border.

Originally International Falls area, Rainy Lake and then Bigfork river country, all along the MN/Ontario border country. The last eight years we were in Bemidji area about 120 miles SW of the border. We just moved to Alaska last May, so we came up through Montana and got to see more of your beautiful provinces in Canada. It was the trip of a lifetime!

Okay - so we're just north of where you lived, in the Dryden area. :)

I have family in Dryden ;-)

I used to go over to Fort Francis for horticulture group guest lecture events. My home on the Bigfork river would have been almost directly as the crow flies across the Rainy River from you, rural Littlefork area. The home of my heart, always!

We went to Fort a few years ago for the Annual General Meeting for the Hort. societies in NWOnt. Maybe you were there!

Probably not, but I bet you my friends were! Does Jan still post? She used to be real active on the forum from Littlefork.

I posted my album link but forgot to mark the thread-Starting over in AK. No pictures in it of Littlefork gardens though, packed up in storage sheds back in MN.

No, Jan doesn't come here anymore. I heard from her a couple of years ago but nothing since then. Had to laugh - when i was looking at pictures of your old gardens, i wondered if you had gotten seeds from her. She sent me a lot of them once and i recognized some of the plants - the mallows in particular. The ones i grew from those seeds have gone nuts!

Jan and I swapped a lot of plants and seeds over the years! The pink malvas can be invasive as heck but I always loved them anyway, especially because I was covering such large planting areas. I never could get the purple malvas going in Bemidji area though they were quite reliable up on the border country.

Besides the malvas, she sent me seeds for the heliopsis and hesperis that are shown in the WSing thread. Those have both done really well. Offhand, i can't think what else she sent me - that was several years ago. :) I don't think i ever saw pictures of her place but i'm thinking it must have been beautiful!

It was beautiful, a genuine working farm of the type not seem much anymore.