Zone description for Reno/Sparks

Sunset's Western Garden - Zone 2B
Arborday.org - 7

Warmer-summer intermountain climate.

This is a zone that offers a good balance of long, warm summers, and chilly winter, making it an excellent climate zone for commercial fruit growing. That’s why you’ll find orchards in this zone in almost every state in the West. You’ll also find this warm-summer, snowy-winter climate along Colorado’s Western Slope and mild parts of the Front Range; in Nevada from Reno to Fallon, then north to Lovelock; in large areas of northern Arizona and New Mexico; and in mild parts of the Columbia and Snake River Basins.

Winter temperatures are milder than in neighboring Zone 2a, minimums averaging from 12 to 22 degrees, with extremes in the -10 to -20 range. The growing season here in Zone 2b runs from 115 days in higher elevations and more northerly areas to more than 160 days in southeaster Colorado. (Mid-may through end of September with milder temperatures approximately one month before and a couple weeks after.

From Sunset’s Western Garden Book, 2007