Re: TB: tried & true; new & improved

From: "Donald Eaves" <donald@eastland.net>

Hello Folks,

Well, the first new and improved TB bloomed - ELECTRIQUE.  While
I was admiring it standing tall and stately in grandeur, I couldn't help
but think it had a hard act to follow after the old homestead iris.  In
the next bed over it is still in bloom.  They might as well be different
species for the differences in effect.  The homestead iris posesses
a natural grace that the others I grow simply lack.  It does not always
grow straight.  It has a tendency to go to sleep and bend over during
nights, and then doesn't completely straighten in the sun, causing
many stalks to have a slight S shape.  I guess it has branches, but
they strike me as more spurs on which each bud is held from 3 to
6 inches, holding them away from the stalks and lending even more
grace.  The falls don't hang straight and narrow, but have some lift and
moderate width, belling out toward the bottom a bit.  The standards
are in perfect proportion arching over and touching.  They are purple,
of course, with a white shoulder pattern and beard which turns pale
yellow in the throat which lights up the heart and gives more carrying
power than it might otherwise have.  Bloomstalks ranged from 29" to 36",
but I guess might have been taller but for the S shape.  It never flops 
and the blooms don't have the substance of the new ones, but neither 
do they shred too readily either, tho they are damaged by really high
winds more than the new varieties.  In my quest for new irises to try
and see, I forget from year to year just how much I like the one I knew
first.  I have other older ones from my grandmother's collection and 
while they are closer to the effect of this one, they don't quite get
there.
It will have to be moved tho, or I will be asking this list why all my
irises
turned purple.  I don't know the name, but my best guess from looking
at photos would be I. germanica.  Does anyone grow this one and does
it sound at all like the homestead iris?

Donald Eaves
donald@eastland.net
Texas Zone 7 and anticipating a bloom tomorrow of arilbred ZERZURA.


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