h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's one growing just down the street from here. It's about 20ft high and seems to be growing in a pot containing rather less than 2 cubic feet of soil. Certainly very pretty but does it flourish in climates that have winter snow?

Yes, it does. We have a bunch of Ginkgos along buildings here at McGill University, and they seem to be just fine. Here in Montreal, we get about 5 months of snow... but not all continuous. December tends to be a bit of a thaw, and after the March thaw, we get more in April. Also, our Botanical Garden has a huge tree atrium (forgot the word), which is basically a lot of land for a bunch of trees to grow on, and about the only kinds of trees which aren't in there are tropical trees. Remember, if the tree is deciduous and the leaves change colour in autumn, it probably does just fine in winter... as long as it's not a 10 month long one . I mean, as far as I was aware, it does snow in China.

The word you were looking for was arboretum - yes?

Erm, yes. That's the wossat word I was looking for, yes.