In a message dated 1/9/2004 2:21:14 PM Central Standard Time, i*@syix.com writes:
Neil..........the one that you saw is called
Solar Fire and the increase on mine looks great!!......so glad that I
ordered it.................Bonnie
Rita Gormley adds:
I bought two SOLAR FIRE last year ...Wonderful increase and saw it
in several Convention gardens in VA! Dynamite!--Rita
Gormley
Neil
responds: Rita and Bonnie, I couldn't resist. I placed an
order for Solar Fire when I saw it. I hadn't ordered from Superstition
Iris Gardens before (I'm only in my fifth year back into irises after a
twenty-some year "vacation." I have heard so many good things about
Rick and Roger and the quality of stock they send out that I thought it was
time to take the plunge. Tasco's DREAM EXPRESS is one I particularly
want to use with my own red-purple-to-rose-and-lilac venture--for its
ruffling and for the other good qualities contributing to its awards.
While at it I looked over the current 2004 introductions and a few from
earlier years.
I have
known Keith Keppel for over forty years and owe him a huge debt of gratitude
for helping me get started again. Not only did he make the effort to
find out where I was living, but he encouraged me to get rolling
again. I came back into the iris world with seven generations of
iris having gone by--I was totally lost. Keith let me make a "Dealer's
Choice" kind of arrangement for a couple years just to get me started with
some good breeding stock. I didn't realize just *how* good they were
until I started blooming seedlings. I was stunned with what I was
getting.
Now,
since I've spent the past five years digging into pedigrees, reading a lot
of catch-up materials, listening to what people are saying on Iris-talk,
Iris-photos and so on, I'm beginning to get the "feel" of what is going on
and have made substantial strides in connecting up what's what now with what
I left behind when I left Idaho and all my iris involvements, resigning as
RVP of the region, folding up our farming operations and letting all the
irises go and all my memberships in the various societies lapse.
I never expected to grow these marvelous things again.
Now I'm
wishing I had a couple acres of fertile, sun-filled, rock, ant and mole free
ground to plant in. Sigh. If wishes were
horses.......
Neil
Mogensen
