Feeling Warmth, Subtropical Plants Move North
By Shaila Dewan
Published: May 3, 2007
ATLANTA, May 2 — Like a true belle, this city flounces into bloom when the weather turns, its redbuds, azaleas and forsythia emerging like so much lace on a bodice.
But in recent years, plants that thrive in even warmer weather have begun crashing the ball. At the Habersham Gardens nursery, where well-heeled homeowners choose their spring seedlings, a spiky-leafed, sultry coastal oleander has been thriving in a giant urn.
“We never expected it to come back every year,” said Cheryl Aldrich, the assistant manager, guiding a visitor on a tour of plants that would once have needed coddling to survive here: eucalyptus, angel trumpets, the Froot Loop-hued Miss Huff lantana. “We’ve been able to overwinter plants you didn’t have a prayer with before.”
Forget the jokes about beachfront property. If global warming has any upside, it would seem to be for gardeners, who make up three-quarters of the population and spend $34 billion a year, according to the National Gardening Association. Many experts agree that climate change, which by some estimates has already nudged up large swaths of the country by one or more plant-hardiness zones, has meant a longer growing season and a more robust selection. There are palm trees in Knoxville and subtropical camellias in Pennsylvania.
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