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Zone 8 is only colder in the winter. North/West/Central Florida is still terribly hot and humid in summer. The further away from the ocean, the less the breeze. Gainesville or Orlando in Summer are not fun.. I've spent time in the Panhandle in summer, and I swear it was much hotter there than it was down in Palm Beach County!

Nowhere in Florida has cool summer days.

But, it is also hot in summer in the NE States. Maybe out West, in a dryer climate, where it gets hot during the day, but cool at night might be an option?

California has some exceptionally nice weather..

I hate the heat too, and live for fall and Winter!

Lisa

love the yard, thx so much, although I am so disappointed see how far I will have to go.

lisa, dont you think that zone 8 would at least have a longer winter than we do? you know, greater number of days under 90 degrees? I emailed my county coop extension agent but no response.

michelle

I agree. To find cool summers you need elevation more than latitude. I grew up in North Dakota and we always had 90 degree weather in the summer - almost every year it would go over 100 for most of a couple weeks. Georgia is hot and humid in the summer. So is Baltimore, Maryland. Moving further north in Florida isn't going to help!
Maybe somewhere in North Carolina in the mountains. Roses would be much easier to grow there than they are here.
Sorry...
Kate

kate, north carolina is where I dream of moving but getting DH to pack and move anything is gonna be a miracle. I thought I would be more successful if I made it sound like a small move....hehehe

I dream of looking out the window past my garden and seeing a mountain, even a little one, in the distance.

so sad,
michelle

I vote for Colorado or Wyoming. I'm a native, too, but dang this heat is a drag as I get older. I think I'd like a real snowy winter for a change. I fantasize about cross country skiing on a calm, cold winter morning. Aaaaah. Heaven. We hiked in Wyoming in July a few years back, and I have to tell you, it was absolutely perfect - not to mention the mountains were breathtaking. The temps in the day were in the high 60s. No humidity. Wildflowers EVERYWHERE. And locals were actually apologizing for the lack of wildflowers because of the drought. I was blown away, I couldn't imagine it looking any better than it did.

I can't get the West out of my head. I've never seen such beautiful country in my life.

But then again, I'm not sure how a rose garden would do in the Rockies...

I grew up in Ft. Worth and that's is zone 8ish and believe me, it's HOT there. We have cold winters but it's just hot, hot, hot. 100+ temp's in the summer. So, even 8's may not necessarily mean much if you want out of the heat!

I have lived in the panhandle around Tallahassee most of my life and it is hotter there than here in central or southern Florida. The heat and added humidity from the gulf effect along with lack of breezes from both sides of the pennisular make it miserable. The winters of maybe a month or two are good, but not always a fer sure deal. There are winters where you run around in shorts or should I say slowly amble along in shorts. I am very miserable at the moment and can not go outside unless it is dark. I developed what appeared to be prickly heat a week ago and I am still itching so badly I can not stand it. I am in misery and living in a 70 degree air conditioned house. My husband is rolling around in his wheelchair watering my babies. I have a full-blown heat allergy. He said colder climates would not help as dressing to stay warm would cause the same reaction. I am pretty much a nudist at the moment and gardening inside the house. The only felief from the heat is to move somewhere where there is little or no sun. That does not help gardening much or move to California. Good luck. Scratching as I type, Linda

wow, I am so surprised to hear how EVERYWHERE is hot. I have a friend in L.A.,Calif and says the only time it gets warm is 3 p.m. in the summer but its still in the 70s. however, I am not interested in earthquakes. at least hurricanes can be anticipated.

anyone here who knows about the heat in the moutains of G.A. or N.C.????

michelle

Here's the website you want!

Average Temperatures by State

I moved here from Montana (on the Canadian border) and in the summertime there we would have temps in the 90's and 100's. It would only last a month or so but it was still HOT! And the grasshoppers would arrive in swarms that looked like a dust storm heading your way. The roads would actually get slippery because there were so many. And then we would have COLD, below zero, for months at a time. Lots of snow too, but too cold to play in it. Hurricane force winds more days than not.

Anywhere you go there will be the up side and the down side. Hope you find your niverna. Good luck!

thx soltice, what a great site. I found a town called jasper, tenn whose temperature extremes are 27 in january and only 85 in july....move outta the way....oh someone grab my husband....hhehehee

tannatonk, that weather doesnt sound fun either. I want someplace w/o extremes that make you miserable. I enjoyed the heat when I was young, in fact, I remember sitting on the beach from 8am till sundown, slathered in baby oil and on both saturdays and sundays and enjoying having a great tan and sun bleached hair....now, you cant even be out there for a couple of hours w/o your skin feeling like a chemical burn....those who dont believe in global warming dont have those experiences to draw on.

tannatonk, did you garden in montana? for how long?

michelle

Hi Michelle,

I remember doing the baby oil thing too! I think when we were younger we just didn't mind the heat/cold/whatever. We get older and know better?

Yes, I gardened in Montana for about 10 years. It was tough going but I hated to leave my yard when we did leave. I was able to have a lot of things there that I can't here but then I have a lot here that I couldn't have there so I guess it's a fair trade. I have never been into growing roses so I don't know how well they would have done there. I just recently was talked into buying two rose bushes just to see how they would do for me and I must say they look good. I honestly know nothing about them except that one is a white floribunda (Iceberg?) and one is a red hybrid tea (Red Masterpiece). They are both thriving so far and have tons of new growth.

In MT I was able to have peonies, lilacs, honeysuckle, daylilies galore, daisies, russian sage, cotonester (a personal fav) all kinds of wildflowers, poppies, asparagus, beets, potatoes, corn, and I could go on and on. It was alot of work. Ground was very rocky and just when you thought you got all the rocks out, winter would come along and by spring you would have a whole new crop of rocks! LOL!!!

Betsy

besty,
where would the new rocks come from? i've never heard that before.

as for your roses, you should spend some time on the roses forum. you will learn alot. for instance, if the 2 roses you have are grafted onto fortuniana rootstock, they will live for a long time. if not, they will have to be potted or live in some type of bed where you can control the nematodes who love to eat rose roots....among other roots. so, dont feel like a bad gardener or that it is florida who is killing your plants. all of my non-natives were dying until I potted them and now they are doing great. I was not willing to poison the ground/ground water to kill the nematodes.

michelle

Michelle, the ground freezes deep way up there. It's called permafrost. Hard as rock! When it thaws in the spring it pushes up and new rocks appear. You can never get rid of all the rocks! If you ever spend any time in that north farm country you'll see large piles of rocks everywhere. The farmers have to clear the land every spring before planting so they have big rock piles. I used to love digging thru those rocks and bringing them home to my yard. They thought I was nuts! I especially liked the ones with pink shiny flecks! LOL!!!

Betsy

The mountains of Central and Northern Arizona might be what you want. I can recommend Prescott: mild winters with a bit of snow that melts fast, and in summer, the temps are about 20 degrees cooler than down in the valley.

Michelle, go to Hawaii. You will never come back :->

I wish I could pack up and move there.

betsy, wow, I feel so uneducated. I had heard of permafrost before but never gave it any thought. I looked it up and was fasinated by all the information that came up. thanks for the education. when I asked how long you gardened, I meant how many months of the year...sorry.

florah, wow, you know I never really thought of arizona as having pleasant temps or mountains. yes, I have seen those huge rock formations but I never really thought they were 'habitable' by people. I pulled up images on google and they look so beautiful. what about wildfires or drought...isnt that the desert? I think of AZ as very dry.

joanm, did I forget to mention that I was not rolling in cash....that would be a fantasy move. I could even grow cocao w/o having to protect it from everything.

thanks I love the input,
michelle

In North Dakota - same extremes of weather as in Montana, it's next door neighbor - we had a wonderful garden. The season was considerably shorter than here in Florida but from April through to about Halloween it was glorious. My mother had over 80 roses, more iris', dozens of peonies, vegetables of every descriptions, a huge lilac hedge, other flowering shrubs, clematis, impatiens, begonias, apples and plums too. And all of it on a small urban lot!

Because it's not a year-long process there and everyone gets a rest in the winter, many more people were into gardening in a big way. My neighborhood didn't have just one Crazy Garden Lady, it had 6 of them! Every morning from the time the snow melted enough to show a little dirt, they would walk around all of the yards to see if anything new had sprung up. Crocus and grape hyacinthe were first, of course - coming up right through the snow. The the tulips & daffs. Most exciting was the first peony eye showing and the first sign of growth on the roses. Usually when the roses were uncovered in the spring they already had some growth. Common attire was housecoats and waterproof boots in early spring, then moving to shorts, tshirts and tennis shoes for the summer. Finally, by late fall, everyone would be wearing light jackets as they went but they stayed with the morning coffee stroll until snow covered the ground. Then they spent all winter pouring over the seed catalogs planning what they were going to start in the spring.

In the fall they moved many potted plants inside and started cuttings of some other tender plants. I remember a glass shelf in the kitchen covered with dozens of jars of cane begonia cuttings! Other types of begonia tubers were stored in straw in a dark basement room until spring.

Kate

When I was in Victoria, BC, I was told that the temp was between 85 and 40 due to the Japanese current. They have a large botanical garden there.
You'll have to learn to sing God Save the Queen.
ron

"Oh Can-a-da! I lift my beer to thee..." (can you hear the music?)