TBs: Our Spring Bloom Season

Hello, All! I made an earlier posting of my TDF iris, Blue Staccato, 
which was the first TB to bloom for us this year. I thought we might 
have a better showing, but here are the six that we enjoyed:

1.  IB GOLDEN MUFFIN -- May 8. One nice gold-orange-striped bloom, 8 
1/2" tall instead of 24". This is one of Dave Niswonger's so I was 
pleased it was the first to bloom. However, there was only the one 
bloom.

2. TB BLUE STACCATO (Gibson '77) -- May 15-June 2. 6 purple and white 
blooms, and the last folded June 4. We were very impressed with this 
one. Now I know why everyone loves plicatas. And, it has a strong 
daffodil fragrance,rich and sweet, a fact I neglected to mention on my 
previous post. I was instantly transported back home to the 1950s when I 
used to help my mom pick daffodils for sale and gifts to friends, in 
central Illinois. Another neat way to ID it is its tricolored beard: 
purple or lavender, then white, then orange in the throat. AND, the most 
exciting part of all, it has a POD! I crossed its last bloom with 
BREAKERS, and it took!

3. TB PHANTOM MIST (Jim Hedgecock '94) -- May 18-30. Also 6 blooms. It 
has several "ghostly shades of blue," as Jim says in his catalog (he's a 
Missouri hybridizer). The lighter blue inside seems to glow. 

4. TB BREAKERS (Schreiners '86) -- May 20-End of May?.  6 blooms. Boy, 
did we love this dark blue, almost purple one! Some of you said it 
blooms sporadically, so I was thrilled when it decided to be one of our 
first. It would have been gorgeous at the Iris Show (which we missed due 
to illness) because it opened several blooms at once, but it was too 
late even for our late, May 17, show. But its pollen is in the freezer, 
and it has a huge, wonderful POD from HANDS UP! 

5. TB HANDS UP (Monty Byers '88) -- May 21-29. 2 blooms, but this was my 
fault. It would have had six, but I was weeding around it and snapped 
off the top of the stalk. This is a Space-Age yellow with a big white 
patch on the falls. The first (which would have been the 5th) had sedate 
little white horns, and the last bloom had no horns. Since it is 
supposed to have wild and crazy flounces, I was sad that I missed that. 
I tried to make it bloom inside, but it wouldn't. With 3 more big fans 
it will probably try again next year. This time it will be HANDS OFF for 
me! I do have its pollen in the freezer, though. 

6.  TB MARY FRANCES (Gaulter '73; Dykes Medal '79)) -- May 28-June 7. 2 
blooms, WAY down in the fan. An interesting story is behind this one. 
This huge rhizome we got at the local sale last July was labeled 
Celestial Snow (Bro. Charles '57). Bev DeWitt, our local President, had 
given one of her sisters a set of the few rhizomes she was growing in 
the early '80s. This particular sister does not grow iris other than 
those few, and doesn't belong to the iris club, unlike Bev and her other 
sister and niece and daughter. Her niece dug and brought them in. So she 
told me it could be one of 6 or 7, and named them for me. It was 
difficult to ID the first bloom, as it was so scrunched down in the very 
bottom of the fan. But the second bloom was up just a little higher, 
enough so I could clean away some of the foliage around it and give it a 
chance to open more. Then I could see it was Mary Frances for sure. It 
has 6 big fans so I hope it will do better next year. 

Barb Johnson     ljohnson@cland.net
Southwest Missouri Ozarks     USDA Zone 5b     AIS Region 18 (MO & KS)
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