RE: Re: SPEC-X

 


I am glad to see you have written here as well.  I have missed reading your thoughts.  I am going to answer some things that have come up here rather than another message.
 
 I have been lurking and reading.  Living in Idaho I learned a long time ago that as a judge if I wanted to vote I would have to grow the different classes here in our own display garden.  We can grow pretty much all classes with the exception of PCN, and Cal Sib. Yes, we do grow LA, and JI.   But I was determined on the PCN and have had some success both with seed starts and plants.  But alas, the Cal-sib just hates it here.  So Ken and I would never be able to vote for that type of iris on the ballot and we know it.  I was thrilled that I could vote for the PCN Hidden Asset as it has survived us, the weather, the soil and continued to grow and bloom.  So did it get a vote....yes it did. Does it grow like the coast....no it did not.  But is it a candidate because it is hardy here and blooms...perhaps.  I worked out a program for "HOW TO STAY CURRENT AS A JUDGE" and worked up a training for the judges here.  The system works and Ken and I can vote the ballot from our own garden yearly.  If you added the HM's from 2011 AIS Awards list in the summer you would be able to see them bloom in 2012, 2013 and would be ready to vote the AM's in 2013.  If it received its HM in 2013, you would be able to see it again in 2014, and 2015.  That means you have seen it blooms for 4 years 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014.....do you know how to vote?  I am sure you do know how to vote.  Now it has it AM  in 2015.  You get to see it bloom again in 2016, and 2017.  Time to vote for the AIS Medal for the class......you have now see this plant for 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.....do you know how to vote?  I am sure you do.  It has  now received the Medal in 2017.  Now it is Dykes Medal time and 3 more possible years of viewing this iris.  You cannot tell me that you do not know how to vote during the time it is up for the Dyke.  But you have to grow them to know them.  This has worked for us and has made me convinced I can vote a meaningful ballot.  Because we are a small garden compared to those that have ground I cannot grow all the TBs that you would have to grow. So we visit the local gardens, botanical garden and other iris growing in the local area.  All the other classes have a reasonable amount of HM's listed  that have not been a problem to add yearly.  Once you get the planting system going, the voting is easy.  Since this is the iris-species discussion....I have added the plants yearly and have been able to vote with confidence.  If you look at the AIS list of awards  for 2010 I would need to add only 'Wildwood Willie,' and 'Wishmaster' which had a R/UP  HM.  The rest are here.  In the Spec-x I need to add 'Currier McEwen' and R/UP Roy's Surprise'.  So not too many but I have also been using this system since 1990.  So to say that judges do not know how to vote is perhaps not as true as has been suggested in this conversation.  I consider myself an informed judge and that my ballot has been thought about and that the plants have been looked at.  If they do well or if they do not do well....we will know because we grew them here in the semi-arid zone 5 part of Idaho.  We only get 12 inches of rain a year.  So tough they will have to be.  High temperatures in the summer and often we get very cold in the winter with little snow cover. This week we plunged to 4 degrees, but as luck would have it we had a snowfall before that happened.  Only a few inches of snow but better than none at all.
 
On the display garden/ test garden side of things.  I also hybridize and do understand the idea behind the test gardens.  I have been sending my plants to the Dr. Loomis Memorial Gardens for several years.  They send out a yearly report with point scores.  What kind of training is going to be given to the new test garden owners?  Will they be required to at least have judges training or some other kind of training called Test Garden Training?  Who is going to check to see if the test gardens have the skills to do this job. For me as a hybridizer....I would want the paper work to be consistent and that they be required to give a yearly report on height, fans, stalks, bloom count, bloom sequence, date of bloom, length of bloom....etc.  This part of the test garden work will be very time consuming for the test garden owner.  Do they actually have the time.  Who is going to point score these plants in each test garden.....judges, owners, guests?  My thought is that if you go the test garden route then you must have at least one in every region of the AIS.  That way any seedling would be given a very equal change in all areas....not just a few regions. More would be better.  But give us a least one in every region.  What about the other countries?  Who is going to monitor all the paper work and how is it going to be used....what publications.  A lot of questions yet to be answered. 
I do not agree that they should be allowed to use any pollen off a guest seedling.  Once the seedling is introduced that is a different story.  It should not be a short cut to get somebody else's work in your garden for free pollen use.  There is etiquette in having a guest iris.  I would freely share pollen if asked by another hybridizer.  But I would want to be asked. 
 
Ken has been in treatment for bladder cancer and so I have been reading but did not have time to respond until now.  He has finished the last treatment in this round and is doing fine.  It was found very early and the prognosis is good.  He will be having another surgical biopsy on December 9th and we should get the report on December 23rd.  If it is a good report....great.  If not , he would have to do another round of treatment.  Our best wishes to you all.
 
Carol L. Coleman
C. Iris On Pond



 

To: iris-species@yahoogroups.com
From: ChatOWhitehall@aol.com
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 11:50:30 -0500
Subject: Re: [iris-species] Re: SPEC-X

 


Greetings.
 
I've had a few stray thoughts...
 
For the record, then, since I have been a lurker here:
 
I have been a member of AIS and SIGNA for a number of years. I actually joined AIS in order to join SIGNA. My first Iris loves were white tectorum, which I had from Nancy Goodwin, a pseudacorus known locally as  "Anner's Handsome Fellow," and my mother's  'Alcazar' (Vilmorin, 1910), which, least we forget, is a species F1 classed as a historic TB. These are righteous posies and I still grow them all.
 
I don't have much dirt, so my plants must be choice aesthetically, and interesting intellectually. I grow largely species and historic beardeds from before 1935. I also have a few superb modern things. I do not compete, I do not exhibit, and am active in the Society only at the national level. In addition to the science of things, I am interested in the social history of the plants within the broader context of garden history generally. I publish when my personal investigations lead me to insights I think someone else may find interesting or useful.
 
First, my observation is that what one grows by preference is largely a function of one's sensibility mitigated by one's circumstances. Taste often arises and evolves from exposure to various sorts of influences; but I have observed that hard core antipathy toward some sorts of irises, or any flower for that matter, or the folks who are beguiled by these, often turns out to be about something else other than gardening. 
 
Second, I hope we won't foster a culture within SIGNA where only some sorts of Iris species are considered respectable for a species Iris fancier to fancy. More to the point, I'd think it very unfortunate, indeed, for the bearded species to become marginalized or villanized because they happen to have been used in hybridizing irises in which we have no interest. We are very far from knowing all we need to know about these species, especially the Eupogons. We don't begin to understand the so called natural germanicas.
 
Quite aside from any other consideration, in nature and in science all these categories the names of which we toss about, these lines we draw and teams we join, are not so clearly cut, so rigid, so inflexible. The Genus is a still-evolving organic whole, and we must study it holistically. For instance, studies at Kew suggest the Junos, than which few things are stranger, are actually more closely related to the bearded irises than to the bulbous species of the reticulata and xiphium groups. 
 
Third, if there is some sort of problem with the definition of SPEC-X as recorded in the AIS Board Meeting Minutes, then take the matter back to the AIS Board and tell them it needs to be clarified because, while you have tried to live with what was recorded, nonsenses are happening, and the people most interested in this general category are rejecting it. That example of 'Dolce' is pretty  convincing.
 
Fourth, say what you will about the AIS, when something really interesting has happened in the world of species crosses in the past decade or so, it has been featured prominently in the Bulletin. Those photos of the Eyeshadow irises created a whirlwind of interest among all sorts of irisarians. When it is highly distinctive, very beautiful, and gets some exposure, the mainstream gets interested. There will always be people who refuse to grow anything but the latest and most expensive TB, although I'd expect them to be fewer by the year, but that, too, is often about something other than flowers. People grow what they know, and they buy what they see in bloom, and they swap stuff around, and they either like to compete in shows or they don't, and they get to do what they want in their gardens and they educate themselves about the plants only to the degree that educating themselves about anything is part of their approach to life. I don't think most AIS members are actively hostile to the notion of species at all. But they are accustomed to getting a lot of visual bang for their buck, and that is a fact. 
 
Fifth, some knowledgeable persons might agree that the AIS Classification System, especially as it is involved in the Awards program, might need to be reexamined. We have learned more since 'The World of Irises' was published. However, it is important to recall that the current taxonomy was conceived by two professional scientists of the very first international importance. I am not a botanist, but I am also not an idiot, and I have read the recent books. I have not encountered any suggested classification that does not present at least as many problems as the one published in 'The World of Irises.' 
 
Sixth. I don't care for all this talk of 'elites.' In my opinion, we are all bozos on this bus. 
 
Cordially,

AMW
Richmond, VA USA
 
 


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