INFO: Bios (M-Z)



I am in NW Arkansas, zone 6b.  Have been interested in plants all my life.
Several of my family have nurseries in Louisiana, so it is inherited I
suppose.  I have some Siberians, several Japanese & a miserable
assortment of beardeds. Also love bulbs, esp. Amaryllidaceae.  I am
serving my first term in the Arkansas House of Representatives and I am
on email thanks to the University of Arkansas.  It makes communicating
with them so much simpler.  Sue

My 'garden' is in east Tennessee where i have lived all of my life except for
a brief stay in montclair new jersey, where i recently learned i was exposed
in utero to the display garden of tall bearded iris in upper montclair (i
can't think of the name of the garden right now).

i live on 150 acres of mostly steep woods with about 15 acres of pasture,
wetlands, and streams with lots of excessively drained rich loamy gravel soil
for garden in full sun with some shade around the house (which is a patched
together 100+ farmhouse riddled with termites and rot).  i work part time as
a research ecologist,  just enough to make ends meet and leave plenty of time
to take care of my geriatric horse and enjoy the natural world, which
includes trying to grow tall bearded iris against their will.  i experiment
with various kinds of plants every year, but usually only keep growing ones
that are a spectacular success without much input or care, and am obsessed
with tall bearded iris.

i joined ais to try to find out why some iris seemed to do so well for me and
others would either rot or waste away and to improve my ability to pick out
ones to buy that would live and bloom.  about two years ago, we started the
east tennessee iris society which has grown to over 50 members already.  we
nearly had a riot at our 2nd annual demonstration show when passionate local
gardeners showed up wanting to buy plants just like the ones we had on
display.  to say iris are popular around here is an understatement.  we are
thinking about starting another club centered closer to kingston where i
live.

linda mann

I just realized I had sent my first post to the list prior to any sort of
introduction ... I'm Steve Marak, living in NW Arkansas, USDA zone 6b. My
plant interests are too wide for my budget, and one of those is Iris, as well
as other genera within the Iridaceae (arguably, I'm told, making me a
complete Iridiot).

I have a couple of beds of TB hybrids, some Louisianas, a couple of
Siberians, some of which I have names for and some of which are
hand-me-downs from
relatives and are grown for mostly sentimental reasons. I have had one brief,
disastrous affair with a couple of oncocyclus which ended in heartbreak (they
pined away, I was heartbroken).

While I like hybrids very much, I find species fascinating and am trying to
expand my knowledge and collection, mostly via seed from seed exchanges and
an internet friend who has shared his extras.

The most common native species here is, of course, Iris cristata, nearly
everywhere in moist areas. (A quick question: I've heard that the white form
of I. cristata is less vigorous than the usual - in my case, the white form,
a propagation from a local population, is not only vigorous but completely
overwhelmed the normal form within a few years. Anyone else seen this?)

I. brevicaulis, I. fulva, I. verna, and I. virginica also occur within the
state but (with the possible exception of virginica) are much less common.

I. pseudacorus (which I resolutely refuse to pronounce pseu-DAC-orus, to the
amusement and irritation of the truly knowledgable) has escaped near my home,
and since the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department propagates it
every year (by mowing it in late summer, and uprooting large clumps) I've
established a nice stand of it as well.

I've been haunting gardening lists on the Internet for years now, but have
seldom seen one start up and reach a steady stream of postings as this one -
congratulations to Tom, and thanks for starting it.


-- Steve Marak
-- SAMARAK@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU or SAMARAK@UAFSYSB.BITNET

Hi! I'm Beth Matney, yet another Iridiot from Arkansas, central Arkansas in
my case.  I've had iris as long as I can remember, almost exclusively Tall
Bearded until recently.  Most of mine are pass-me-around from family and
friends, so I do not know what most of the varieties are.  Some are very old
(prior to 1929) from old home places. I have two different natives found on
our farm, that have been identified as Iris verna and Iris cristata (both
blue), an unusual (to me) that is supposed to be a wild iris from Israel,
Iris pseudacorus, Siberian, Japanese, Louisiana, and the usual assortment of
Dutch and English bulbed iris. I am especially interested in other natives
(at this time). We have 66 acres of ex-timberland that we're reclaiming. I
grow quite a few daffodils and daylilies also.


My name is Margaret Maurer. I am a librarian in Cold and snowy
northeastern Ohio. We just bought a house sitting on 2 acres of
overgrown under-irised hard pack clay.  We're really looking forward to
planting
lots of flowers, vegetables, and of course, irises.

I have to admit I really don't know much about irises but got interested
in them when a neighbor of mine handed me some unidentified rhizomes.
They turned out to be a type of short iris - the flowers kind of peek
out of the shortened green foliage.  They're quite prolific, and will grow
under almost any conditions.

I am quite impressed with the credentials of some of the people who have
joined this list.  Hope I also have something to contribute.

Thanks for starting this list.

Margaret


Hello everyone,

I'm Jim McMillen, I grew my first Iris when I was about 3 1/2 years old.
I'm a hybridizer as well as an AIS accredited judge for the past 8 years or so.
Currently I live in an apartment so have no place to grow any Iris except
for a couple of species which adapt well to pot culture.

Might be going to Sacramento, not sure yet.  I try to go to all the
conventions to visit with all my iris friends.

Talk to everyone soon

jim


Hi,
I grow dwarf, median, historic, louisiana and siberian in upstate NY, near
Albany.  I have 3 boys, ages 3,7 &12.  And a husband who keeps our computer
working, so I really do appreciate him, even if he doesn't garden.
When I joined I'd planned on just lurking, but since I passed out about 8
pots of Iris uniflora "Carcina" at a Regional meeting in Oct. I guess I have
to jump in.

Kathryn Mohr
kemohr@aol.com


Hi everyone,

I live on the eastern end of Long Island. I think this is zone 6. We rarely
go below 0 F or above 100 F. I had this house built three years ago.  It
sits on about 1 acre of wide open land. Except for the handfull of trees
that I have planted there are no trees with 1/4 mile at least in any
directrion. This provides great views, but the WIND.:(

My basic interest is in gardening in general. I do grow some vegetables but
I have in truck farming country and the farm stands are so near that I
really should not grow too many vegies. If I was inclined (which I am not)
I could walk about 200 feet and pick the nearby farmer's corn or pumkins!

I have put in many shrubs as starting landscaping and alot of lawn (ugh!).
Most of my favorites in this group (the rhodies) have had a very hard time
of it because of the winds.

The last two years I have started a perenial bed, a rose bed and an Iris bed.

I am hoping to expand on these beds this year.

As far as Irises are concerned, I have about ten plants last year, mostly
bearded Irises. I hope they all come back this year for we were very dry
last summer and extremely cold this winter. The last three mornings we were
at 0 or -1 F.

Looking forward to participating in the list!

John Packard
Calverton, NY
jpackard@emapnet.com


Dear iris friends,

        It's very nice that there is an iris list, now, and I'm looking
forward to some pleasant conversations on it.

        I've been growing irises since I was a teenager in the 1960's when
I lived in Michigan near Grand Rapids.  I tried my hand at breeding irises
there including space-age irises, siberians, and spurias.  After moving away,
I didn't have a garden for some time.  I was a graduate student studying
mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelpha, and later a
professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and I'm still
here, but for a few years lived in an apartment in town.
        About nine years ago, my wife and I bought a new house in the
nearby town of Spencer on a nice but relatively shady lot.  Immediately
we planted irises of various kinds, but only the siberians and cristata
irises flourished.  A couple of years ago we squeezed some tall bearded
irises into the vegetable garden, the sunniest space we have, and they're
doing well.

        Last May, I started an iris web page at

http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/iris/

If you have a web brouser, please check it out.  There are references to
other iris pages on the web and various other things.  Should you know of
anything I've missed, please let me know.

        Dave

--
David E. Pane-Joyce                             Dept. Math. & Comp. Sci.
djoyce@clarku.edu                               Clark University
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/home.html      Worcester, MA 01610-1477


Hello Iris lovers;  Since I am joining the list I will give this
introduction.  My name is Bob Pries.  I garden South of St. Louis in
Zone 6.  At least it used to be zone 6 until this last cold blast.  I
grow every type of Iris I can, even tall-beardeds.  My favorites are
miniatures and species.  I like to think of myself as a rock gardener.
The smaller Iris fit best in that setting but with an acre to work
with I do large plants also.  A friend of my says I never met a plant
I didn't like, so count me out for saying which are bad.  Some are
just better!

I guess I should reintroduce myself. I had to sign off the list for a
while when I was changing my provider. My name is Joanne and I live in
Hamburg NY (outside Buffalo) I've been trying to grow TB's for about
3 years now and this year I'm planning on adding some JI's and SIB's,
also possible some LOuisiana's. I've got a couple of spots that they
should enjoy. I usually just hide out and listen to what everyone else
says and have found this list very informative. Hopefully spring will be
here soon.
Joanne Pyszczek (jopyz@earthlink.net)

Hello All:
  I have just joined the group today.  I have an interest in general
gardening (vegetable and flowers), and also in garden ponds.  My primary
interest in irises is in building and planting a "reed" bed for my garden
pond.  I have read several posts about irises that do well in a reed bed,
and will be looking for information along that vein.  Charlie Rodgers
  e-mail addr:  rodgersc@bah.com

Hello There! I trust I am now speaking to the truly addicted, to irises
that is. We are relatively new gardeners - 6 years - and only 4 years into
irises, with this year representing the first committed to increasing our
collection extensively. Unfortunately, we are terrible at keeping variety
names straight and though I am working on it, it will take time to change
my ways. Many of the irises we have, mostly tall bearded, were gifts from
friend's originally and a good number were given to us by an iris breeder
as his rejects. I'd guess we have about 150 bearded clumps and a few
siberian, Japanese and dwarf varieties. The new ones this year will all be
reblooming irises, which in zone 5 will probably not be the success they
are in warmer spots. I'm particularly interested in knowing more about the
rebloomers and anyone's experience with them. TIA

Cheryl, in the fabulous Finger Lakes of New York - Zone 5
schaefer@epix.net

Hello,

This is a brief message to introduce myself.  My name is Suzanne Sluizer and
I live in Albuquerque NM.  I am the vice president of two local iris groups:
the New Mexico Iris Society and the Albuquerque Aril Society.  I am also a
member of the American Iris Society and Aril Society International.  I am
presently an apprentice judge of the American Iris Society.

I have a small garden in which I grow a large variety of irises (I don't know
the exact number, but it's well over 500), around 30 roses and various other
plants.  I started hybridizing irises two years ago, so my first seedlings
should bloom this spring, which is very exciting.  My hybridizing efforts are
focused on median irises, particularly standard dwarf bearded irises (SDBs),
intermediate bearded irises (IBs) and miniature tall bearded irises (MTBs)
and the arilbred irises (ABs).  I have done some tall bearded (TB) crosses,
but they take up so much room that I decided it would be a more effective use
of space to concentrate on the smaller irises.

As a side note, if you haven't grown median irises, I would encourage you to
try them.  Not only are they beautiful, but they extend the iris season,
since
many of the smaller irises bloom long before the TBs.  If you can grow TB
irises in your climate, you should be able to grow medians.

In "real life," I am an adjunct professor of Computer Science at the
University
of New Mexico.  My areas of specialization are programming languages and
software engineering (which used to just be called programming).

Suzanne Sluizer
sluizer@cs.unm.edu

I'd like to introduce myself,  I'm a novice to listservs (please
be kind),  I have used internet for resources for many years and
have been growing iris in east-central Minnesota for about ten
years.  Eighteen inchs of snow is still on the ground.
Resently, my wife Jeanne and I has started to dabble in
breeding, crossing, or hybridizing some of our garden tenants.
But I will admit, primarily we grow the iris (TB, MTB, SDB, MDB
and Siberians) for ourselves.  Does this make us selfish?

I just subscribed to this list and have been asked to introduce myself.
My name is Herman van Beusekom. I am a nurseryman from The Netherlands.
I like to grow alpines only but
for a living I also need quit a collection of uncommon perennials.
This weekend our winter has gone. We had a long and severe winter
(although not as severe as over the ocean) which we normally do not
have. The temperatures went down to minus 15 degrees centigrade.
Normally we do have little snow here. We can have -up till the half of
may - very nasty wheather including many nightfrosts but frost overday
seems to be impossible since the sun is pretty high (and hot).
My lists of offerings (but I do not export) contains the following
Irisses:
humilis; chrysographes 'Black Form'; clausii; cristata 'Alba'; cristata
'Eco Little Bluebird';
'Gingerbread Man';  glockeana; gracilipes 'Lavender'; 'Greenspot';
lacustris; innominata;
'My Seedling'; pallida 'Argentea Variegata' ; ruthenica; setosa ssp.
canadensis; sibirica 'Berlin Bluebird'; sibirica 'Butter and Sugar';
tenuissima; rossii; unguicularis 'Oxford Dwarf'  and  unguicularis 'Mary
Bernard'. Next year I hope to bring quit a selection of dwarf cultivars.

In general Irisses are not very popular here. People are complaining
about the short flowering period. I for myself believe that the habitat
of an Iris is a must in rockgardens so I try to make people enthusiastic
about them.
So far for now. Good growing.
herman.van.beusekom@tip.nl

I thought it was time I tried to introduce myself, instead of just lurking.
Kathy Guest, ol' Iris Borer, herself, knows me from the Daylily Robin.  I
started with Bearded Iris and had about 200 but think I brought some disease
in or the old NW wet weather did it's thing, but I was doing so badly I got
into Siberian, Pacific Coast, Spuria, Louisiana, and Ensata.  Planted about
25 new ones of those this year.  I'm new to Spuria, but have had all the
others bloom at least once.  Slugs don't bother them, nor disease (so far, my
fingers are crossed, though!)  I really love the Beardeds but they don't like my
garden, yet.  I don't like to spray, but may have to, though with all the
spring rain, it might not help much.  I am going to try mulching to see if
that keeps leaf spot from developing and going to try something drastic to
cut back on slugs!

 The dwarfs did real well for me even when the TBs were not, but they didn't
bloom much last year.  And I can't keep any kind of bulb iris for long as
mice eat all bulbs except daffodils.

 Janis Whitcomb, Auburn, WA

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

Hi everyone
I've been lurking all week-decided to introduce myself
I'm fairly new to Iris growing.  I live in Tucson, Arizona and started 4
years ago.
I grow 90% TB's.  The fall before last I put in a dozen Spurias, followed
this past fall by another dozen.  Spurias do extremely well in the desert
southwest, as do tall bearded.  I'm currently growing about 300,almost all
TB's, which is  about all I can comfortably grow at this time, you see, even
though I'm growing them in Tucson at my house, I work in Phoenix 120 miles
away, and only make it back to Tucson weekends. (This is only temporary-I
retire in 3 years)
My iris have slowly started to bloom, with about a dozen in various stages of
bloom or bud..
The peak in Tucson will be mid march to mid april - a far cry from May and
June in northern and eastern states.
I attended the AIS convention this past spring in York, and intend to be in
Sacramento for the AIS convention late April. .
We have active iris clubs in both Tucson and Phoenix; I'm a member of both.
My favorites:  Skating Party (a huge white), Merry Madrigal, Heather Blush,
Before the Storm (my first year for this near-Black TB-it was a big 'hit' in
York last spring), and  Persian Berry.
The Phoenix Iris Club (Sun Country) had a wonderful speaker this past week,
Dr. John Weiler, hybridizer of 'reblooming' iris.  In case you're not aware
what they are-they are iris that generally bloom not only in spring, but at
least once more, usually summer or fallor winter, and some of the newer
reblooming iris are really spectacular.  Some even bloom for months on end.
They need additional water in the summer, however, but after seeing his
slides, i'm going to place an order this summer for a 'reblooming' area of my
garden.
The Tucson Area Iris Society has it's monthly meeting Feb 10 and the speaker
is Keith Keppel, who will speak on 'The History of the Plicata Iris'. I'm
fortunate that the Phoenix meetings are on a weekday and the Tucson meetings
on a weekend-I can attend both.

Sam Wymer in Tucson AZ
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