Re: OT-BIO Katie Long

Howdy from the Wild West!
	My name is Katie and I live in La Grande, Oregon.  That's in NE Oregon in
the Grande Ronde River valley.  Most on-line USDA Zone searches say this is
Zone 5 but the USDA Map (large enough to paper my livingroom wall) says I'm
in Z 6a.  Sunset says we're Zone 2 but I don't know that this area ever
gets that cold in the winter.
	I'm just about to get into iris growing and have already had one of my
questions answered by reading your posts.  Very good info!  But more
questions have been generated from postings.  For instance, (I'm truly
green) what is the TB, JA, SP, SDB, etc.  I think I've figured out the JI
and SI (tough ones huh?).  Well, I hope to learn a lot more from you.
	A friend has dozens of (unknown) iris that need to be divided and shared
(I'm the lucky one) and this will be my start in iris gardening.  I even
have a few of her seeds that I might try to cultivate.  What I need to know
is whether it's too late to dig & divide.  We just had our first hard
freezes the last couple of nights.  No snow, ground is diggable.  What do
we need to do?
	Most of what I did this year was veggie gardening with some beauties
inserted for eye appeal.  Planted some new roses, and did lots of canning -
good year for tomatoes.  One of my favorite books is 'Carrots Love
Tomatoes' by Louise Riotte.  Her suggestion for repelling the Cucumber
Beetle is to interplant radish with the cucumbers allowing them to go to
seed.  The plants are very small even when allowed to go to seed.  Would
this work with iris too?  She also says that cucumber beetles can be
trapped by filling shallow containers 3/4 full of water with the addition
of some cooking oil.  Couldn't hurt.
	Don't think I'm up for all these society memberships just yet, but who
knows what the future will bring.  I'm a disabled Army veteran with time on
my hands for gardening and the like.  I've really enjoyed the list and will
look forward to any input you have.
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Katie
La Grande, OR, US
USDA Zone 5b/6a
e-mail: kael@oregontrail.net

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.
		-- George Bernard Shaw
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