Hi All, This is my first post on the PBS mail route, having been a member for about a year plus. I wanted to alert those of you in Southern California to a real treat right in our backyard. This past Sunday I drove out to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens in Claremont. I thought I had been there years ago but I discovered I had never done so. What had I been missing! I had seen some photos of the garden and I was expecting more or less a dry, California-type native garden with lots of Ceanothus and Manzanita, Heucheras, Zauchnerias, Mimulus and other plants of the Chaparral . There was that to be sure but a whole lot more. I was totally unprepared for the central portion of the garden which is a native oak forest. And beneath the open shade of the oaks are vast sweeps of Pacific Coast Iris--thousands and thousands of them--in every imaginable color. It was completely enchanting. I had no idea there was such a range of colors of these native irises. I told a very good garden expert I know about my visit and he said the people at RSABG are, of course, native plant experts and give the irises the exact conditions they need--with no summer irrigation. So the plants do get kind of ratty in the long dry season. But for this kind of spectacle--I can see why they go to all the trouble. The Irises will probably be putting on a show for at least the rest of April--as long as the weather doesn't get too hot. Now I'm hooked on these Iris--I'll be planting my own garden with lots of them. Dan