Fwd: HIPS UNICORN...Lonnie's biography

Reading the bio's yesterday made me think how much I enjoyed reading about
others that I had been contacting without knowing anything about.  This Is a
copy of my bio that I sent to the Historical Iris Robin.  Some of you are on
the robin list.  Sorry for the extra copy.
---------------------
Forwarded message:
Subj:    HIPS UNICORN...Lonnie's biography
Date:    96-03-21 03:48:53 EST
From:    LONLEE2086
To:      LONLEE2086

Hello all.   I am Lonnie Strouth,  29 yo,  married to Jeannette.  2 kids
Joseph (4)  Samuel (16m).  I am from South West Virginia, Roanoke county.
 Zone 6/7.  I have been a member of the Blue Ridge chapter of area 4 A.I.S.
for two years, though I doubt that they know it.  I am a medical tech.  In a
large hospital system.  Thats a lab person to most vampire to some.  Ha ha.
 I have been growing iris myself for at least 17 or 18 years.
Depending on what you would call historical iris,  I'd say most of the ones
Have are quite old.  Nearly all I have were given to me by hundreds of
people.  People like to share plants.  Thats what I have learned.  If you see
something you like tell them how well you like it.  In turn many people have
been on the recieving end of my iris virus.  I have spread iris all over
Virginia,  Tenn. and N. carolina.  I have always liked growing plants.  When
in high school I had accumulated over 100 houseplants for my mother to take
care of when I left for college.  Fortunatly she killed most of those in my
absence.  I went to college in East Tenn.  at a very small school called
Tucsculum.  There I took up Biology.  Had a lot of chemistry and got out of
there papers in hand.  Then I had a year of post Grad at the hospital that I
now currently work for. Its a livin but thats about it.  I met Jeannette  at
Tusculum,  she moved up here to Roanoke.  We married bought an A-frame house
on 10.5 acres ... the rest is history.  I dont think Jeannette knew what kind
of plant problem I had untill we moved out in the bush.  The only thing
really keeping my plant problem in bounds is the fact that the land is 98%
wooded.   I bought a chainsaw last year in order to eeeeekk out a little more
space for my habitat.      Now back to the IRIS.  About five years ago I
recieved about fifty newer varieties of iris from an elderly Iris lady.  None
of them labeled.  They Joined the hundreds of other no names.  I joined the
local A.I.S. and bought forty or so more.  These were properly labeled by the
plant folks in Roanoke.  I planted and labeled them.  Thinking that it would
be easy to keep up with the names.  I was wrong...  My then two year old
Joseph managed to pull up all the tags in less time than it took me to plant
them.  Try, try again.   I do have some distinctive iris that i did get to
see bloom before the tags were lost.  Why do I have an interest in historical
iris???  From what little I know about iris I can tell that the breeding is
going off in all directions.  These newer iris are truely inprovements of a
sort but they shouldnt replace the old form entirely.  I still like the
staying power of the old purple flags.  The narrow hafts.  the rounded falls
with a clean smooth edge.  Even the floppy ones.  I feel there can be a
merger between the old and new.  I have noticed that alot of the things I
like are still showing up in the intermediate bearded iris.  Have they not
been breed to death yet???   I dont know for sure but I suspect that the
sterility in some of the Iris I have was induced prematurely by the same
breeding that gave us the beutiful variety.  The fertility of the future can
be corrected in some cases by back crossing with your historical varietys.  I
would like to see the A.I.S.  get there Library to become something real,
 instead of all talk.  But that takes lots of money doesnt it.      Anyway to
make a longer story shorter.. I like The iris form already mentioned in a
blue purple neglecta, selfs and variegata yellow/red.  I am pretty fond of
Amoenas and I cant resist  the right plicata.  Guess i like bitones too.
 Lets face it I like them all.  EVEN the good substance well branched ruffled
and laced ones.  I have only reciently had a reason to care about the names
and lintage of a plant.          Hope you all can keep up with my poor
spelling and grammar  its the only thing they didnt manage to take away in
all those years of school.  Mama cant spell either.           

                                     Lonnie Strouth
        (LONLEE2086@AOL.COM)

      P.S.  Just bought this computer on my home equity loan.  Its my first.
 I love it.  It may even help my spelling.  Its got spellcheck on one of the
other programs,  If I can just learn to use it.  Ha Ha.
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