What's Your Zone?

I have been visiting as many garden blogs or blogs written by gardeners as I have had time to hunt down and read this weekend. Here is what I want to know. What's your Zone. This is not a weird, middle-aged pick-up line. I really want to know. What plants can you grow that I can't(garden envy). What plants can I grow that you can't (braggin rights).

I am in zone 8a. We stay hot as Hades from May to September, fall weather hangs on quiet a long time, winter weather is relatively short, and spring weather is heartbreakingly brief. We run out of rain and sometimes have water restrictions as early as June. We were actually under water restrictions for more than a year after a particularly severe drought. Those restrictions were lifted last summer. Many gardeners in our area practice some sort of rain water harvesting to supplement our rain, city water, or well water.

I will see if Nancy would mind my posting a picture of her hillbilly rainwater harvesting operation. We have been able to avoid using city water in the greenhouse for at least two months. The plants seem to prefer the rainwater. I am pretty sure most plants do not thrive on chlorine.

Anyway, I digress.

What's your zone?