Iris Sale (was TB: Alabaster Unicorn)

Hello, folks!

The Central Arkansas Iris Society's annual sale was a monster success
Saturday. We offered more plants than ever before and sold out very, very
quickly. We were scraping the Garden Center room for teeny rhizomes by 9:30
a.m., and the public just kept coming. We'd scheduled the public sale from
8-2 p.m., as usual, but we usually have plenty left on the tables by noon.

These people were locusts! They would have bought bermuda grass if we'd
thought to pot it up, but they wanted irises, all kinds of irises. And we
had irises to sell them - for a while. Many people drove in from 50 and 60
miles away or farther.

I believe we had such a huge response because the club held its show in May
in a local mall. I recommend malls to everyone. We were not charged for the
space because the mall saw us as a way to boost foot traffic, and we were
fortunate enough to be given an empty store front to use. So many people
saw our gorgeous blooms there that when the newspapers printed our sale
time, they were primed to attend.

*Think malls.*

Another splendid idea carried out by our diligent, energetic president
Lucie Burley was to display photographs and descriptions of each cultivar
we offered, whether TB, beardless or species. Think of the organizational
work and the effort involved in that! We had several hundred different
plants to sell. We also contrived to put photos above unnamed cultivars,
for the folks who just wanted plants to naturalize (rhizomes for about 40
different plants went that way). Lucie even wanted photos of the
houseplants we sold. It seemed impossible, but she pulled it off, and we
displayed photos above almost all of our plants. The few that didn't sell
immediately were all the plants we did not have pix for.

*Think visuals.*

I was also astounded to see a dismaying amount of I. Germanica (several
hundred merrily multiplying rats yanked from my yard) snatched up because
someone had the foresight to mention its *fragrance* in the note posted
next to the rhizomes.

A big load of "thank yous" to George and Margaret Sutton, of Sutton's Green
Thumber, from whom the club ordered rhizomes to supplement members'
generous donations. We were delighted with the Sutton stock and with their
friendly and helpful assistance.

celia
storey@aristotle.net
Little Rock, Arkansas .......... P.S. We auctioned off four of George's new
introductions, and Yours Truly is now the proud owner of ALBASTER UNICORN,
the TB several of you kind people helped me describe to complete our
auction sign-up sheet. You made it sound so wunnerful I couldn't resist.
:-)
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