In 1963, my parents moved our family from our mostly-flat Midwest town of Chautauqua, Ohio, to the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was 7 years old that year, and along with my sister, 16, and my brother, 13, finished growing up in mountainous terrain.
I moved to Florida in 1975 as a young newlywed. All of my four children, now grown, were born in Florida, and all but one of my seven grandchildren were also born in Florida. During much of the time that we have lived here, four generations of our family lived within a ten-minute drive of each other in western Pasco County, Florida, in the Tampa Bay region.
Our family properties are in Pasco County, in the southern part of the Nature Coast, just north of the Sun Coast.
We used to be classified as in USDA Zone 9A, but when the maps were changed, all of Pasco County was placed in Zone 9B.
Our climate is subtropical. We have been here long enough to see the climate change and become warmer. We have even seen the USDA growing zone change from 9A to 9B. That means that we are able to grow more tropical plants and trees than formerly. That also means that it is harder for temperate plants and trees to do well here.
Still, I hold on to the dream of growing apples, my much beloved fruit of my childhood, in Florida. There is support for that hope. Apples were once widely grown throughout the South and are still grown in California and Africa. There is a technique to growing apples in hot climates. I mention this to make the point that my philosophy about forest gardening is that you should grow for love: you should grow what loves to grow where you are; and you should grow what you love to grow. Truly! That sums it up!