2/00-02 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information contact: Christine Kelleher, 800-232-9557, Ext. 512 or Gary Doerr, 916-716-1889 This is one in a periodic series of articles by respected garden writers throughout North America. You can expect others on topics of similar interest on a timely basis. Feel free to use this release in its entirety or in part, with or without the author's byline. Lorraine Flanigan is a freelance garden writer living in Toronto. She is contributing editor for suite101.com's Gardening in Southern Ontario web site and her City Gardening column appears in Toronto's Town Crier newspaper.

Gardeners are living in the zone. Striving to enhance performance, their goal is to build a beautiful perennial garden. Unlike athletes though, these gardeners require little training and no special diet. Their secret is knowing their climate and a plant's hardiness rating.

It's easy to put yourself in the zone. First, get familiar with North America's hardiness map. Both Agriculture Canada and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have divided the country into zones delineating warmer and colder regions. Southern Ontario spans three zones - Agriculture Canada Zones 7 to 5 and USDA Zones 6 through 4: the lower the number, the colder the region. To find your zone, view the map at Agriculture Canada's web site, at the USDA web site, or ask at a local nursery.

Next, find a plant's hardiness rating. Growers evaluate plants, rating their performance in different regions. A plant rated hardy to Zone 4, for example, performs best in milder climates up to Zone 4, but not as well in regions colder than Zone 4. Blooms of Bressingham works with universities and botanical gardens throughout North America, testing perennials for their hardiness across five zones. Look for the hardiness rating on each Blooms tag and match it to your own to begin gardening in the zone.

Like athletes, gardeners have different styles. Some play it safe by choosing plants rated a zone or two colder than their own. Zone 3 (USDA) perennials available from Blooms of Bressingham include the hardy Filipendula 'Kakome', a dwarf meadowsweet with foamy pink flowers; the flamboyant Gallardia 'Mandarin' and a moss phlox with sky blue flowers called 'Oakington Blue Eyes'.

Learn to cheat the hardiness rating system and win. Discover warmer microclimates in your garden - a sunny area protected from the wind may provide ideal conditions for perennials normally grown in warmer regions. Another trick is to insulate the ground with a leaf mulch to protect frost-tender plants from below-average winter temperatures.

With these tips in mind, expand your borders with a selection of Blooms perennials rated hardy to USDA Zones 4 and 5. New for the year 2000 are the Lovely Lady™ series of daylilies: the ruffled and creped, golden blooms of 'Lady Florence'; 'Lady Jackie's plum-eyed mulberry petals; and the white ribbed, pinky-rose blooms of 'Lady Rose'. Two new crane's bill geraniums are the blue flowered 'Rozanne' and 'Apple Blossom', a silvery-leaved geranium with soft pink flowers.

Let the Blooms of Bressingham tag be your guide to gardening in the zone!