St. John’s The Place To Feast The Eye On Iris

Those with a passion for iris will think they’ve gone to heaven during a visit to a test garden just south of St. John, Wash. The Iris Test Garden boasts 1,500 varieties that should be in bloom through late June. Visitors can peruse the fields of blooming iris late afternoons, evenings and weekends and place orders. The rhizomes will be delivered in late summer.

To get to the test garden, take Highway 195 south to Steptoe, turn west on Highway 23 and go to St. John, continue one mile south on the St. John-Endicott road to the test garden (you’ll see it on the roadside).

Spokane shutterbug: Kudos to Spokane gardener Elmo Dinehart whose photo of a lotus vine graced the back cover to the May/June issue of The Gardener, the magazine for members of The Gardeners of America.

Be careful: Each year, about 400,000 people are treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries from lawn and garden tools, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The group offers these safety tips:

Dress appropriately with long pants, long-sleeved shirts, close-fitting clothes, sturdy shoes, gloves, eye and ear protection and no jewelry.

Before starting machinery, remove objects from the work area that might cause injury such as stones, sticks, metal or wire.

Never let a child operate machinery unsupervised.

Never work with electric power tools in wet or damp conditions. Make sure extension cords are in good condition.

Turn off power tools before making adjustments or adding gas to the tank.

, DataTimes