Well Chuck, i must say that the irises i've ordered
from warmer countries have been very disappointing...
If i divide my Australian bill by the number of
survivors, they must reach more than $200 a piece...!
Same with the Californian bills, even if they have
been kindly replaced( and i really am thankful for that ), the year after, same
thing, they die!
When a couple of years have passed, out of 20
irises in a bed, there are only 5 very healthy survivors, that look very
lonely in their almost empty bed.
I would love to find a database of the
'Southern Beauties' that manage to thrive in the cold and wet North...but doing
the try out myself, i give up!
The SDB and
IB seem to do a little better, the demand, the pressure for 'new
things' is less, so they are not as consanguineous.
For non specialists, it's very hard when you look
at a catalogue to know where the irises come from.
Even when you have the name of the breeder, how
many know where Keppel, Sutton, Black, Chapman, Kerr, Ghio, Blyth, Bianco,
Cayeux, live!
I agree with you that something should be done,
because so many people must be put off from growing irises:
In Holland, i never see a bearded iris
anywhere. Irises have such a bad reputation that no one grow
them. When people visit the garden, they cannot believe their eyes, but i
tell them they must really be careful with their choice.
If even I intend
not to buy anything coming from warmer countries anymore, even with the
passion for irises i have, imagine Mr. Lambda....who knows nothing about this
plant !
Yes, something must be done, because, for the
moment, the only solution i see, as far as I am concerned, is a 100%
boycott!
Loïc
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 5:36
PM
Subject: [iris-photos] Re:proposed AIS
Awards Ballot
There are biases towards TB with Dykes as these are more popular,
and
more importantly, biases towards the warmer climates where there
are
more judges. Thus there have been top awarded bearded iris in
past
(including Dykes Medal Winners) that are good growers only in
warmer
climates, and not the rest of the AIS regions.
As a
commercial grower in a colder climate (colder part of Southern
Ontario,
Canada) I often see new iris enthusiasts selecting iris based
on the awards
they have received. I also would expect some of these
plants to not do as
well for them as others that are more suitable for
their climate. I do try
to steer people away from plants that are not
suitable for their climate.
But there are many sellers of iris, and I
suspect that there are a few
enthusiasts in colder climates that get
turned off iris when the "Best" as
determined by AIS award system do
poorly for them.
I have suggested
in the past that there be some sort of Region
requirements for awards. I
was invited to present some ideas to the AIS
board of Directors, but
decided that the time was probably not right.
If there was a ground swell
of support for this sort of idea, then it
could be organized and
presented.
If there was some sort of Region requirement (such as
weighting region
votes) then more of the award winning iris would be
suitable for a
larger number of growing climates. This would also translate
into
retaining more iris ent
husiasts, and make the award system a
more
reliable method of selecting good cultivars.
One man’s
opinion.
Chuck Chapman
-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy
Ives <rives@rogers.com>
To: iris-species@yahoogroups.com
Sent:
Sun, 29 Mar 2009 9:01 pm
Subject: [iris-species] Re:proposed AIS Awards
Ballot
This is a precis of a precis I sent to Diane privately. I
have
truncated the original, and there are quibbles that everyone can
make.
I have also removed some personal biases.
;-)
The AIS awards are always going to be biased one way or
another... in
favour of growing irises as opposed to, say, daylilies.
<bias
removed>
These awards are determined
by garden performance in the various
judges' gardens. That is a
considerable improvement over a picture in
a catalogue, over a spike in a
show, or by Joe Blow's comments on the
internet.
All the
information concerning the iris awards is provided in the
Handbook for
Judges and Shows that is available for sale from the
AIS
website.
First, the hybridizer has to evaluate
the seedling - does it have
qualities that are an advancement over what is
already available to the
knowledgeable gardening public. This means
those who will distinguish
between the stuff you can get at Walmart vs. the
stuff you can get at a
quality nursery. If=2
0so, they
may register it for introduction after
several20years
of evaluation in their garden and (especially for the
less experience
hybridizer) guesting at another garden elsewhere in
the
country/continent. It may then be forked into the compost or
formally
introduced via a catalogue or some other printable
advertisement
(webpages can be printed and mailed to the
registrar).
The clock starts upon that formal introduction.
A bearded iris becomes
eligible for the Honourable Mention upon its second
year of
availability to the public. A beardless iris, such as a
siberian,
becomes eligible for the HM upon its third year of availability
to the
public.
Practically speaking, that means avid iris
growers who are willing to
pay the introduction price... and that generally
means the iris judges
(such as myself). Fortunately iris prices come
down far more rapidly
than daylilies, so the average gardener can buy such
irises within 3-4
years at about a quarter the introduced
price.
The tool used to make the determination of what wins
the HM is the AIS
ballot that is sent to all eligible AIS judges.
There are over 800
judges spread out over the continent and overseas,
including a large
number in the Pacific Northwest. All have multiple
years of AIS
membership and a considerable amount of training into what
constitutes
a quality iris. There are some excellent judges and
some20less so, but
the overall quality is quite high and all must retrain,
both in the
classroom and i
n the garden, if they wish to maintain
their status.
So when the ballots are tabulated, there are about
800-900 experienced
voters whose opinions are counted. For all iris
classes, the top 10%
plus ties will receive an HM. If an iris does
not win an HM in its
first three years of eligibility, it drops off the
ballot BUT it always
remains eligible for an HM. <bias
removed>.
Once an iris receives an HM, it is added to
the ballot as being
eligible Award of Merit two years after the
HM award. This allows the
judges who have not grown it previously to
add it to their garden for
subsequent evaluation (or to search it out in
other iris growers'
garden). Again, it remains eligible for an AM for
three years, but if
it does not win an AM in those three years, it drops
off the ballot
permanently.
The top 10% plus ties will receive
an AM. At least two of each class
will be awarded an AM, however
there must be at least three candidates
for an AM before voting is
permitted. Therefore the less popular
classes will see
proportionately more AM awards per number of
introductions than the most
popular classes.
So you see that the chances of winning an AM in
a given year are only
slightly greater than 1% for all introduced
irises
from a given year.
In three years of eligibility this
means that around 3% of all
introduced irises from a given year in a
gi
ven class will win an AM for
the most popular classes (TB and SDB
especially).
Once a iris wins an AM, it becomes immediately
eligible for the class
medal. The top vote getter wins the medal, but
ties are permitted.
The medal winners become eligible for the
Dykes Memorial Medal.
So to answer your question concerning
'Starwoman' (an IB) vs 'Rococco',
(a TB) the hybridizer who introduced
'Starwoman' saw qualities that
were improvements over existing
cultivars. Those qualities could be
bloom count, durability, form,
structure, hardiness, foliage habits;
any number of things. The
enthusiastic iris gardeners across North
America who purchased it early and
grew it in their gardens saw the
same thing, or even different things (such
as rebloom) and voted for it
as a confirmation of its quality. Over
the course of four rounds of
voting (six in the case of 'Starwoman'),
its merits were confirmed.
All of which does not mean 'Rococco'
is an inferior iris (I've never
grown it). It means that 'Starwoman'
has superior qualities that
knowledgeable iris growers believe the
gardening public should be made
aware of when determining what they might
consider planting in
their
garden.
Regards,
Sandy Ives in
Ottawa
=2
0
