Re: Re: CULT: wish - trial garden costs
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Re: CULT: wish - trial garden costs
  • From: R* P* <r*@embarqmail.com>
  • Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:20:12 -0500 (EST)
As Public Relations Chair for AIS I have been working with the American Public Gardens Association in discussions about Iris Gardens in the Botanical gardens that are its members. The thrust of my efforts is in the area of National Collections of Iris which is essentially a garden that tries to preserve a type of Iris. But I am also interested in Display Gardens and Trial Gardens. Trial gardens should not use that title unless they are really engaged in a scientific trial which means a reasonable number of replications. The bI tried that Iris and it failedb approach is not a trial. Trial gardens are probably not feasible for the most part. I know of only one in Texas that is dealing with just four Louisianas. But Display gardens can show a plant growing well in the area and that is a recommendation to the public of that variety. Many Botanical gardens and other types of Public gardens around the country have Iris display gardens.  One of the areas I hope to develop in the online encyclopedia is a page for each of these iris displays. If one were traveling they could go to the encyclopedia and see what Iris gardens are on their way. Of course we are a long way from even getting the foundations laid for this project. the last I looked we have 5,000 pages up and the last few weeks have been putting up 1000 plus pages a week but there are 80,000 pages to create at a minimum. 
It costs Botanical gardens an enormous amount of money to create a new flower bed. The Missouri Botanical Garden spent $10,000 just to create a 30 foot addition to their Iris bed. The maintenance is usually accomplished by local volunteers as a labor of love. Usually these people are also members of the local Iris society. Often the excess plants are sold at the garden to the benefit of the garden and the local club. In St Louis the sale would often bring in $5-10K but they often spent $5k on the creation of new fancy labels for new Iris additions. Costs can be very high when creating a first rate public display. 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Linda Mann" <lmann@lock-net.com>
To: iris@hort.net
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 7:19:16 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [iris] Re: CULT: wish -  trial garden costs

Thanks for the comments, Alex.

Like they used to say, if wishes were pennies, beggars would ride.  At 
least I'm getting my wish for warmer weather. ;-)

Tom Abrego told me once that way back when (probably before they moved 
to Oregon), Schreiners looked at property in the Oak Ridge, TN, area, 
about 30 miles from me, & were seriously considering moving their 
operation here.  Something tells me that they would have moved again!  ;-)

Trial Garden Costs:

To move a row that is 100 foot long and 5 foot wide with multiple types 
of TB iris costs me at least $200 in labor. Medians cost more. For 
example, 4 plants of Jelly Belly filled a gunny sack with offspring in 1 
1/2 years.  I have over 120 rows. Add to that the costs of water, 
fertilizer ($900+ 3 times a year), weeding, irrigation supplies, etc., 
and I'm starting to get much more picky about what I plant. When you 
consider that most iris that are over 10 years old can be purchased for 
$5 or less, it is not cost effective to plant older plants that are 
harvested by hand in small quantities. Add to that the cost of selling, 
digging, and shipping hundreds of small orders of cheap plants each 
week, and you know why many of us refer to our love of iris as an 
illness! Because of this, trial gardens tend to be a network of friends 
growing each others plants for fun, because much of it is not viable 
commercially. Because of cost concerns my garden will change 
dramatically over the next few years, with the emphasis on rebloom, my 
hybridizing program, recent introductions, and a merchandising 
experiment I'm trying with reblooming medians (SDB's thrive and rebloom 
year round in San Diego County).

Alex Stanton, Stanton Iris Gardens

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