On the Road Again: The Keppel Garden

By Bryce Williamson

My second stop on the 2019 tour of iris gardens in Oregon and Washington was the garden of Keith Keppel in Salem. For many years, Keith Keppel’s garden in Stockton was a must visit destination. With his retirement from the US post office, Keith made the huge move to Salem, Oregon. While he was in California, it was easy to visit the garden several times during bloom season, but it is not so easy now with the added distance. The last few years I have made it up to Oregon—part of this On the Road Again saga—and I especially was interested in seeing his progress with plicatas. In addition to that work, Keith has spent a lot of time and energy creating endless variations of dark top irises.

Considering that Keith still does all his work, he remains spry and I cannot believe the energy he has to maintain his acreage--I looked at the work involved and was ready for a nap. 

The last two years, I have made a beeline to the plicatas to see what is new and different.

Kepple 12-015-A

Keppel 13-16-E

Brass Lamp brings the dark top patterning into a new color range.

'Brass Lamp'

And taking dark tops into a totally different color range:

Fashion Event 2020

Other seedlings of interest:

Keppel 13-51-A

Keppel 13-54-A

Remare L-22-B

Keppel 12-41-G

Named varieties that I liked:

'Clean Energy'

I did not expect to like 'Dancing on Ice' and it is subtle, but has lots of personality.

'Dancing on Ice'

This was the first time to see Thomas Johnson's iris with the amazing shoulder colors.

'Elite'

Oddly, there has been a lack of good neglectas of late and 'Major Issue' is bold and has huge, crowd pleasing flowers.

'Major Issue'

'Ocean Liner'

'Sugar High'

Barry Blyth's 'Flauntress'

After a too short visit to the Keppel garden, it was On the Road Again, again in a shortcut that Kevin Vaughn provided to the Vaughn and Lauer gardens south of Salem.