Re: Moores' irises, Shore Patrol (was Scorpio Star)

In a message dated 6/5/2004 10:47:17 AM Central Daylight Time, hensler@povn.net writes:


Scorpio Star (Moores 1994) Always lovely.


Speakin' of Moores stuff, sometime back I posted a comparison of two blue irises.
One an obviously grand pipe stuffer with the bloom characteristics necessary to win a Dykes medal (Sea Power). And a Moores iris (Shore Patrol) famous here for growth.

For review, photo of similar size rhizomes planted side by side for comparison following about a year of growth. Sea Power on the left and Shore Patrol on the right in this '03 photo.

For the majority of people comprising the iris community garden show is of far more value than the "pipe" or bench shows that so greatly influence the awards/accolade system as it exists today to saying nothing of the misery it visits upon unsuspecting gardeners and the reputation of irises by the lists they produce.

Most of us comprising the iris market place may attend a show on occasion, maybe even take a few irises, but we will all see irises far more often and in greater variety in our gardens and those of our nearby friends. For most of us in the iris community, shows will always be takin' a back seat to viewing garden blooms in our own soil and we expect performance.

Somewhere, likely in an effort to perform genuine service to the whole, our formal iris organization became sidetracked. Somewhere along the line we allowed well meaning promoters of pipe stuffing to move into positions of leadership. We allowed them to manage our effort, funds, and promotion with irises while we paid for their party. We allowed them to forget their function ... to serve us. The tail should wag the dog mentality somehow became entrenched and began waggin' us.

In what other, arguably sane community would we be asked to serve judges by ranking their choices rather than insisting judges serve us by ranking ours? How could we have been so ignorant of the end results? How could we allow leaders to usurp the prerogatives and rights of our membership and confer such upon themselves? All musings for another day should we ever become young in our ways and wise in our thinking.

Back to the central issue, iris performance.
I have plenty of pipe stuffers and judge's darlins growing here and I like every one of them. Know too that I don't want to be without any of them. But, I also have some genuinely great irises growing here that perform beyond a stalk or so. They are admired and enjoyed over a long period of bloom time and produce enough bloom bio mass to stop the most rabid daylily fans that visit here in their tracks leaving them speechless beyond utterances of oooh and aaaah.

The below photo is a bloom results 2004 followup.
The single stalk Sea Power produced is to the left of the mass of the Shore Patrol blooms in this photo. Sea Power produced three beautiful, precisely formed blooms this year. I did not count those produced by Shore Patrol. Shore Patrol will not likely win the Dykes while Sea Power is a shoe in to do so. That's Magician's Apprentice hogging the camera in the front of this photo.

One of the Shore Patrol stalks did fall over. I think more from crowding itself with growth. I staked some of the others as a precaution. It had not fallen in the past but I had dreams of crossing the two and took no risk. That's what prompted planting them side by side from the start.

This is a view from another direction of the same clumps of Shore Patrol and Sea Power.

Sea Power's single stalk is front right. It took me a while to find it in my photo. The remaining show is Shore Patrol. I like real iris shows!
Smiles,
Bill Burleson




  
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
click here

Yahoo! Groups Links
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index