CAT / How does a newbie buy specific irises?

Hello folks,

My wife is an avid gardener with an interest in irises and digital
photography. But, she's not a "heavy duty" gardener who does a lot of custom
ordering or anything. I'm someone who doesn't know a spade from a playing
card. A while back, we were surfing through
http://www.zyworld.com/ciop/homepage.htm, and we found a number of iris
varieties that she really liked.

As a gift, I thought I would get her some of the iris varities we had seen
there. But, being a complete novice at these sorts of things, I have no idea
how to go about buying them. Some people have referred to "the catalogs,"
but I'm not even sure what that means.

At this point, all I know about the varities I'm interested in are:

a. The name, like "Wyoming Cowboys" or "Heavenly Encore."
b. Something that I can only assume is the place that made the variety, like
"Aitken's Salmon Creek" or "Shepard Iris"
c. An idea of which kind of iris it is, such as "Spuria iris"

So, my questions are:

1. How do I purchase irises of varieties like these?
2. Assuming these would be purchased by catalog, how do I get on the catalog
mailing lists?
3. Are these catalogs individual? Or is there some single "Iris Catalog"
where most varieties can be purchased?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Just please bear in mind that you're
talking to someone who has never purchased a plant other than by going to
the local nursery and saying "I'll take one of those." (^_-)

If you're interested, the specific varities that came up in discussion were:

Apricot Drops (Aitken's Salmon Creek - miniature tall bearded iris)
Wyoming Cowboys (Shepard Iris - Spuria iris)
Hook (Mid-America - tall bearded iris)
Heavenly Encore (Cooley - tall bearded iris)

Thanks,

Steven Battisti 

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