Have you tried any of the historic TBs of more northern
heritage? I would think they could provide an interesting
comparison.
Sharon McAllister
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
Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make dinner
for $10 or less.
