Temperatures, rainfall, soils, and altitudes vary tremendously in the United States. What grows well in the California’s dry summers and Mediterranean climate might be completely lost in Colorado’s mountains, or on the damp coastal plain of Louisiana. Even within a given area, there are microclimates. When most people think of cacti, for example, they picture Arizona or New Mexico. But some cacti are native to the upper Midwest. They’ve found a desert-like niche in dry, rocky slopes that get lots of sun.

On a website called Colorado Gardening, Sally Codgill describes the mistakes commonly made in her state: “Too often plants that require mild winters, cool summers, ample rainfall, a humid environment, or loamy, acid soil end up in gardens here. Doomed from the start, these misfits die an early death.”