Convention Report
- Subject: [sibrob] Convention Report
- From: C* W*
- Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 20:47:12 -0400
Hi All,
There have been very few reports on the siberians seen at the AIS Convention so I thought as a garden owner I would make a few comments. I was only able to see one garden but I saw a lot of that over a long period of time!
We had nine buses over three days and thankfully only one that I know of got stuck and the same one got lost. All the others seemed to navigate quite nicely.
In my garden I had 32 days straight with absolutely no rain and then 5.2 inches of rain during the week of the convention. Thankfully, most of that was early in the week or the Saturday night after the conclusion of the convention.
My favorite guest iris was Bob Hollingworth's seedling number 97B6B8. It is a ruffled deep wine flower with a huge white signal surrounded by a blue halo and veins and set off by a bright white wire rim around the falls. The style arms are wide and fancy and have a touch of turquoise in them. After the rain, the tallest flower stalk was 35 inches in height. This is probably the most striking siberian I have ever seen.
Bob's other guest seedlings that were very nice included 97B1B25, a very ruffled blue violet bitone again with wide ruffled styles. This stalk was only 18 inches tall on a second year plant. Maybe it would grow taller another year. 97A5B3 is very different and is a velvety deep purple with a big gold sunburst signal and aqua styles. The stalks on this one were 21 inches in height.
Other favorites were SHIPS ARE SAILING by Shafer/Sacks. The guest plant was only 34 inches in height but my own plant beside the fence is 45 inches tall. The bitone blue flowers are large, ruffled and very "showy". DIRIGO BLACK VELVET by John White was early and has continued to stay in bloom for a long time. It is very dark velvety purple with a gold signal.
Marty and Jan's yellows were show stoppers. SUMMER REVELS (slightly ruffled bright yellow, 23 inches), IN FULL SAIL (a bit lighter yellow but wider and more ruffled, 22 inches), TOM SCHAEFER (deep yellow, 27 inches) and SUNNY SPELLS (branched slightly lighter yellow, 28 inches) certainly drew a lot of attention from note-takers and photographers.
For those of you who attended the Siberian section meeting and heard Dr. Epperson's talk, I can see why Marty and Jan use Tom Schaefer in their breeding program. You should see the seed pods on it. It will be a shame to take the stalks off when it finishes.
SOMEBODY LOVES ME did receive one of the runner up awards to the best out of region irises seen at the convention. My clump was not too impressive this year because it bloomed more than twice last year. I kept telling it to save its energy for the convention but it would not listen.
I have one question for the hybridizers out there. Do you measure the height of the bloom stalk before or after the monsoon season? These heights were measured after all the rain last week and this week.
I hope several of you will add some of your favorites to this list.
Recovering somewhat from the convention,
Carol Warner
Draycott Gardens
Maryland, zone 6/7
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