REF: Patently Red, and the Archives

In a message dated 8/20/05 11:15:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
pharcher@mindspring.com writes:

<< Well as far as patenting irises goes, none have been patented to date.  >>

Actually, this is not accurate. Modern bearded irises have indeed been 
patented, including 'Giant Rose', which I believe was the first, but the practice 
fell out of favor, or otherwise fizzled, for various reasons, not least of which 
was consumer disdain. 

There are some very interesting discussions both of breeding for "red" 
irises, and also of "patenting irises" in the Archives of this venerable list. To 
search for posts on the latter, go to the Archives at 
<<http://www.hort.net/lists//iris-talk/>>,  then go to the Search page. Select all the years, use 
"patent" as the search term, and roll the number of responses up to the maximum to 
retrieve. You may also find it useful to do another search using "patented" or 
"patenting" or "patents." Bill Shear had some useful things to say on the 
subject as I recall.

Make very sure you select the earliest five or six years of the list, for 
there are many wonderful and informed discussions of all sorts of things to be 
found there. Indeed, if you find yourself yearning for some fine Iris-talk 
action but not enough seems to be coming down the pipeline some days, or the only 
discussions going are things that do not interest you, or are being carried on 
by folks who drive you up the wall, the Archives are always a great place to 
visit for amusement, or to check up on a subject of interest. 

Whether you are interested in finding out the requirements for starting seeds 
of some Iris species, or reading up on some good companion plants, or getting 
up to speed on some society squabble, or thinking about historic diploids as 
garden treasures, or refreshing your memory on definitions of rebloom, or 
seeing what has been posted about color charts, or Punnet squares, or aesthetics, 
or better and lesser cultivar names, or better and lesser cultivars, or the 
relationship between borers and evergreens, or borers and native irises, or 
about larcenous crows, or lists of people's all time best growing irises, or the 
ethics of gleaning feral historic irises, or Murphy's oil soap in the garden, 
or frost protection, or gypsum as a dubious soil conditioner in the East, or 
the reliability of some Iris book, or how to solarize your soil, well... one 
might chatter on until tomorrow and still not begin to exhaust the rich potential 
of a leisurely romp in the Archives. 

I visit often to enjoy posts by former members whom I miss, or to refresh my 
memory on some point, or tap into the collective genius, or partake again of 
the sheer rollicking merriment of the list in its early days, and later as 
well, of course.  Whether it is Clarence on poetry, or Sharon on hybridizing, or 
Lowe on pedigrees of historics, or Walta with his splendid wit, or Ian talking 
about his dog going nutz that day, to say nothing of others of us rattling on 
about any and all subjects, thinking aloud, having our say, you will surely 
find fun, enlightenment, and even a few lingering mysteries, in the Archives.  

If keyword driven search is not your forte or you don't have a subject in 
mind, you can just scroll to the bottom of the first page with the months on it, 
start at the bottom of the list, and open the first month, and start reading. 
Work your way up the list. I've read them all through several times, and will 
do again. Learn something new each time, too. 

I believe the Archives of this list are, hands down, the greatest literary 
treasure in the world of irises, and you may quote me.

Cordially, 

Anner Whitehead
Richmond VA USA

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