Your zone, your frost window, your rules
Hardiness zones, frost dates, planting calendars, water-wise design and fire-smart landscaping — the conditions every other decision depends on.
Montana Growing Zones Explained: What Actually Grows Where You Live
Montana is not one climate. It is at least a dozen, stacked from the floor of the Flathead Valley to the shoulder of the Beartooths, and the distance between those…
Montana Frost-Free Days by City — and Why Your Neighbor's Is Different
Your first frost date is not a state number.
When to Plant in Montana: A Month-by-Month Guide for a Short Season
You have roughly 90 to 160 frost-free days, depending on which valley you live in. One late-May frost can erase six weeks of work you did indoors under a shop light.
Xeriscaping in Montana: A Water-Wise Yard Without the Gravel Desert
Say the word "xeriscape" to most Montana homeowners and they picture red gravel, a few boulders, and a lonely cactus. That image is a marketing accident, and it is…
Microclimates in Montana: Why Your Neighbour's Garden Doesn't Look Like Yours
You and your neighbor are leaning on the fence, looking at two tomato plants that came off the same rack at the same nursery and went into the ground the same…
Chinook Winds and What They Do to Your Plants
Early January. The snow is running off the street in a river, you're standing in the yard with no coat on, and you are thinking Montana isn't so bad after all.
Watering and Irrigation in Montana: How Much, How Often, and When to Stop
You ran the sprinkler every morning from June through August. By the middle of July the lawn had gone flat and gray anyway.
