Gardening for nerds...

[DylanTK]

Well, because I'm an ultra geek, and because of the "cedars only grow in the top half of your town" mechanism, I decided to have growing zones for each fruit based on their latitude. This lead to a magical adventure into "hardiness zones" which hardcore gardeners use to determine what they can grow in their region. Some of the hardiness zones vary depending on the variety of fruit (ex: some apples are more cold tolerant or heat tolerant than others). Because of that, I had to decide what variety some of the fruits were. Most of this was just based on visual appearance, with a preference for asian/japanese varieties.

Here's what I settled on (ordered from north to south):

Anjou Pear - Hardiness zone approx. 5-8

Fuji Apple - Hardiness zone approx. 6-9

Ichi ki kei jiro Persimmon - this was a toss up between the Fuyu and Ichi Persimmon, as they are both Japanese and nearly identical in appearance. It's my understanding the Ichi is sweeter, so I went with that. Hardiness zone approx. 6-10

Sato Nishiki Cherry - a highly sought after variety of cherry grown in Yamagata. Can be red or red/golden (perfect cherries anyone?). Yamagata resides in hardiness zone 9.

Shimizu White Peach - I am almost certain this is what the in game peaches are meant to be. They can be a pale pink and cream, or a pale golden color, just like the peach/perfect peach! Grown in Okayama, which is hardiness zone 9.

Lemon - Okay, I wanted to find a fancy named lemon, but plain old lemons were the best fit. Hardiness zone approx. 9-10

Orange - Undecided on the variety. Mandarin? Valencia? Hardiness zone approx. 9-10

Alphonso Mango - Hardiness zone approx. 9-11

Lychee - Hardiness zone approx. 9-11

Durian - Hardiness zone approx. 11

Did you make it this far? Did your eyes glaze over with boredom? Or are you too a gardening nerd? If you are, feel free to share your own gardening geekery with the class.

 

[fenris]

As someone who is considering majoring in botany, this made me smile.

I'm kind of tickled that peaches and lemons can handle the same sort of climate... maybe I'll grow lemons as well as perfect peaches. They'd look nice together, I think.

 

[DylanTK]

I actually decided to have the peaches next to lemons, and perfect peaches next to the cherries for contrast. I agree though that lemons and perfect peaches would match well. I'm thinking it might be cool to plant everything else according to hardiness zones. I already have cedars in the north and bamboo in the south, and now I have bands of fruit trees based on their optimum hardiness zones, so I might as well go all out, right? It might be pretty cool because it'll give the southern part of town a very different feel from the northern part of town, but still have some kind of logical transition.