There's a lot more to climate than 'zones', mainly the zone is helpful in determining which perennials will make it through your winter (though soggy vs dry can be comparably significant). For fruit you look at winter chill hours to make sure the plants get enough chill to flower and grow in the spring, for onions you look at daylength and temperature. For warm season stuff like peppers and okra, it needs to be warm - 9B San Francisco can't grow them without a greenhouse. What I've found very helpful in picking crops and getting a good idea of how to grow them is by reading publications from a nearby university with an agriculture department, I use UCDavis a lot. Many universities will publish papers about how to grow a certain crop in their area, including starting dates, fertilization regimens, local pests and diseases, harvest dates, and other information that commercial growers use to produce that crop in the area. Farmers grow stuff to make money, so starting with their practices is the perfect place to start. For CA folks, here is the UC page: http://ucanr.org/freepubs/

We'll all come stay with you. I got dibs on the couch. :-) In the hot desert cities, the days of the heavily watered lawns are done - its all gravel xeriscaping, sports fields are artificial turf. Las Vegas is paying a significant amount of money if you tear up your lawn and put gravel - something like $1,000 then the water savings. I don't hang out much in Phoenix, but driving through, all the new construction is xeriscape. I'm on one of the tributaries to the Colorado, my irrigation company has the 2nd most senior rights on the river, #1 being some outfit down in Gateway, a ranch bought up - along with the water rights - by a dot.com tycoon and turned it into a luxury resort so they need the water for their golf course. They've only put in a call once, in history, about 5 years ago. Otherwise, our irrigation company rules the river. Now amongst us shareholders, things are getting interesting this drought season, with the special irrigation deputy sheriff getting 40 calls a day to come sort out squabbles. Even with the senior rights, our irrigation will be shut off in the next few weeks. Unless we get *lucky* and catch one of these massive cloudbursts over the upper watershed.

A neighbor fell overboard for "the sky is falling" crowd philosophy, purchased a number of semi-tropical plants believeing that global warming would allow him to grow these, and within two years all were gone. Unfortunately, I believe the scientists have politicised the issue to where they are no longer credible. Remember the dire predictions of an extreme increase of hurricanes for our Gulf coast last year? It just didn't happen. Yes, I believe there is global warming. But, I also believe there was global warming before, that it is a natural fluctuation due to many factors including minor axis changes, etc.

I have acquired hundreds of irises from the West Coast and hundreds more from the East Coast and Midwest. As a general rule, the West Coast irises tend to take a long time to shrink down and acclimate to northern MN before resuming their bloom cycles. In many cases, the irises (primarily TBs) have died before they've managed to adjust. In a few cases, the acclimation period has taken as long as 7 yrs before irises began blooming here. I've had a lot more difficulty getting warm climate TBs to successfully acclimate here than I have the medians. West Coast medians generally take longer to start blooming for me than those from the Midwest or East Coast, but they almost always survive the acclimation period. Laurie