Hi all - a friend and I were talking the other day about the concept of using water bodies, rocks, or other masses for the thermal protection they'd offer (particularly in relation to growing perennials on the edge of their hardiness zone). Does anyone know of good rules of thumb for estimating the thermal buffering that different techniques would offer? For example, would the shore of a quarter-acre pond be 10 degrees warmer than the surrounding area on a winter night? What about 20 feet from shore? What if you plant southwest of a big boulder? We've heard examples of using microclimates to extend hardiness zones (like Sepp Holzer's citrus - I assume a trifoliate orange or trifoliate rootstock) but numbers could be really helpful. We were talking about trying to roughly measure this using temperature sensors but I was wondering if anyone had done that work already.
Thanks very much and hope all are well!
Colin
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