Jim's story

I got interested in irises in 1982 when a few of them around a house
that I bought seemed to do well with my minimal care.  A catalog and
a visit to a local iris show were enough to start me adding more.
Although I've never grown more than a couple hundred at a time myself,
I do visit lots of other gardens and attend conventions.

I enjoyed working in Delaware as president of the local society to 
establish a public demonstration garden.  We were fortunate that the 
University of Delaware had an estate garden on its grounds that it could 
not afford to maintain, and so we both benefited.  I also learned from
working with Carol Warner one summer at Draycott Gardens and helping
with a sectional convention.  I've been an AIS judge for about four
years.

I moved to SW Ohio about 18 months ago, about on the zone 5-6 border,
bringing about 80 of my best from DE and adding a couple dozen more
that year.  This last summer I again reached my comfort level of 200
or so, roughly evenly divided between TB, IB-BB, MTB, SDB, and Siberian,
with about 20 JIs and some species.  I planted a few Spurias for the
first time too.  I've already had a couple of trees taken out so that
I can add a new bed for enough to go beyond comfort next year.  My 
favorites are the Siberians, for their elegance as landscape plants
and for their ease of maintenance.  Among the bearded I like the MTBs 
best, for their ability to avoid falling over, multiplicity of stalks,
and proportion for cutting.  But, there are really standouts in all
categories.

I'm so glad to see so much activity, and to again be in touch with
the Lowes, who used to visit us in Delaware.  Iris people are the
best.

                --Jim   (wilsonjh@muohio.edu)
                  http://www.muohio.edu/~wilsonjh

--
Jim Wilson, Applied Technologies, MCIS, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056
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