Book Review: Dwarf and Median Bearded Irises

by Tom Waters

Dwarf and Median Bearded Irises: Jewels of the Iris World

Kevin C. Vaughn

Schiffer Publishing, 2022

ISBN 978-0-7643-6389-4

144 pages

Books about bearded irises don’t come out nearly often enough, in my opinion. It’s been over a decade since Kelly Norris’s beautiful A Guide to Bearded Irises made its appearance, and it is especially exciting for some of us to see a book devoted to the dwarf and median classes. Whereas the heart of Norris’s book was profiles of favorite individual cultivars in all the different classes, Vaughn focuses on the classes themselves: why we grow them, where they come from, and where they are going.

The book has a simple and clear organization: a chapter for each dwarf and median class, a general chapter on culture, and a chapter on hybridizing. The last is quite innovative in books of this type. Most horticultural titles address readers solely as consumers—purchasers and growers of garden plants. But Vaughn is a lifelong hybridizer, and his enthusiasm for this hobby is infectious. It adds a whole other dimension to how we appreciate our irises, and Vaughn assumes that many of his readers will want to share this with him.

The chapters on each class set forth the distinctive qualities and uses of each, selling the reader on what each has to offer. But Vaughn goes further, giving us a historical overview of the development of each class. This dovetails nicely with the corresponding chapters in The World of Irises* (edited by Bee Warburton and Melba Hamblen, 1978), bringing each class up to present day. The work of important hybridizers who contributed to the development of each class is noted and summarized. This is an important contribution. Those who have been deep in the iris world for decades know this history, which is sort of a shared experience, transmitted by word of mouth and personal correspondence; but this book records that history and makes it accessible to newcomers.

The chapter on culture takes a very welcome, fresh approach to the subject. Instead of repeating the familiar instructions that seem to have originated a hundred years ago with gardeners in the UK and New England, Vaughn takes us on a tour of his own gardening experience in Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Oregon, and relates practices of other gardeners he has known. This opens up the subject, putting forth lots of good ideas without pretending there is a one-size-fits-all recipe.

The hybridizing chapter was of special interest to me. It should be noted that an entire book could be devoted to this subject, so this presentation is necessarily condensed. Vaughn refers readers to the chapter by Kenneth Kidd in The World of Irises*, and indeed I think it is best to use these two resources in tandem. Total newcomers will need to work some to connect the dots as they read Vaughn’s chapter. The effort is one that pays off, though, as Vaughn has a lot to share with us about how a backyard gardener can approach a hybridizing program and what the special challenges are for working in each of the dwarf and median classes.

To sum up, this book makes a fine addition to the library of anyone interested in dwarf and median irises, particularly those of us sufficiently immersed in an iris obsession to appreciate this book’s attention to hybridizing and to history.

*EDITOR'S NOTE: The World of Irises book is now out of print, but used copies can be found online. Wayne Messer and Bob Pries have also transcribed select book chapters for Iris Encyclopedia. AIS is always looking for volunteers who can type existing content into this online library. If you are interested and available for transcription projects like this, please reach out to Bob at bobpries3@gmail.com.

On the Road Again: Lauer’s Flowers

By Bryce Williamson

The saga of visiting iris gardens in Oregon and Washington continues. When I arrived at Kevin Vaughn’s, we made the executive decision to both go to see Larry and Marcy Lauer in Independence, basically just a hop and a skip away from Kevin’s. I needed directions, of course, since I had always approached their garden along the river.

'King of the Road'

Larry and Marcy lived in Wilton, California for many years and there they met Jim McWhirter and Larry starting hybridizing. On his retirement from the United States Post Office, they headed north and ended up with an acre in Independence 10 miles south-east of Salem. 

The town is charming with many of the turn of the 20^th Century buildings being renovated. It has become a bedroom community for Salem as gentrification in Salem has forced many people to live miles from the Oregon capital. From my first visit to this garden to my last, the changes in the town are striking—where there was open space around the garden, new housing is almost to the property line. You will see the change in the next picture taken last year and the image below it taken the year before.

Larry has had many awarding winning irises, but his most widely grown iris is the Dykes winning ‘Stairway to Heaven’. More recently, Larry has become increasing interested in reblooming irises and is focusing his current projects on that area. Larry has also been working a line for red amoenas, an interest of Kevin too, so they had much to talk about.

 

Larry Lauer with Kevin Vaughn in the seedling patch

In the last several years, I have greatly admired Larry’s ‘King of the Road’, but it seems to have slipped through the cracks of the American Iris Society awards. A warm, satisfying color combination, it also attracted the attention of Schreiner’s and they have it listed in their catalog. I had to look for it for two years to find plants to buy, but it is now happily growing in my garden.

 

The image is from two years ago before the two story homes went up next door.

Another Lauer introduction that is happily growing here is ‘Blinded by the Light’, a very bright and very early orange. Oddly orange colored tall bearded irises don’t seem to be in fashion these days.

'Blinded by the Light'

While I visiting mainly to see Larry's seedling and introductions, he grows many new irises and some of them that impressed me included the following three. 

'Dark Storm'--Rick Tasco

'Ocean Liner'--Keith Keppel

'Jungle Mist'--Paul Black

The last iris looks quite green in the garden and when I had a commercial nursery, I always found "green" irises sold well and were in high demand.

Among Larry's introductions and seedlings, I took pictures of the following; the first two remind me of Gaulter colors and patterns.

Lauer B-10-31

Lauer B-44-1

Lauer B-76-31

Lauer E-53-2

Lauer F-17-4

'Higher Ground'---Lauer 2019

After a too short visit to the garden, it was back on the road again. I needed a good nights sleep since I had caught an early flight from San Jose to Portland and I knew tomorrow with visits to Schreiner's and Mid America would be a long day.

On the Road Again: The Vaughn Garden in Salem

By Bryce Williamson

After a too short visit to the Keppel garden—it would be possible to spend days there watching the bloom unfold, it was on the road again this time to head south of Salem to the garden of Kevin Vaughn.

Vaughn T-18-1
A tetraploid MTB voted  best seeding at the 2018 Region 14 Spring meeting.

When Kevin retired from the USDA job, he found 3 acres south of Salem. Just as Lynda Miller had provided a short cut to get to her garden, Kevin had told me a quicker way to get to his garden by skirting the east side of Salem before cutting over to his place on

River Road.

Kevin brings a wealth of scientific knowledge to irises and he as been a frequent and useful contributor to The World of Irises blog. While working for the USDA, he published over 160 scientific papers and recently he wrote Beardless Irises A Plant for Every Garden Situation and is now working on a book about median irises. His Louisiana irises have won awards and in 2019, his ‘Lemon Zest’ was one for the winners of the Mary Swords Deballion Medal for Louisiana irises.

He has been raising Siberians and out of the selections below, several will be introduced when stock allows.

His hybridizing interests in irises ranging from dwarfs through tall bearded and including in addition to the above Siberian seedlings, Louisianas and Spurias, and that interest is match also  by his interest in hybridizing other types of plants too. In his twenties, Kevin was a bright star of hosta breeding and the American Hosta Society have honored Kevin's contributions to the development of the genus Hosta by establishing in 2001 the Kevin Vaughn Award, which is given to the entered sport that is chosen as Best Overall by the AHS Judges.

With a new garden, Kevin has returned to hosta hybridizing something that he could not do during his years stationed in the South for USDA.

From his early teens, he was interested in breeding sempervivums and continues to do so. To find out more about his creations in that area, follow the this link. Daylilies and daffodils have experienced his touch; most recently he has seed from miniature gladiolus. A trip to this garden is always rewarding.

In the last two years, one of the most interested bearded irises in the yard is a Witt seedling—Kevin is growing the last of Jean Witt’s irises and the first of the selections, ‘Just A Dusting’, will be introduced by Aitken’s Salmon Creek in 2020. The most interesting diploid iris in the garden is the reddest beard iris any of us have seen. It will never be introduced since it is too big for the MTB class, but some of us are growing it in the hopes of using tetraploid pollen on it and get—if we are very lucky—a tetraploid from those crosses that should bring new a new source of red pigments into tall bearded irises.

To make sure he does not get stale in retirement, he is also an accomplished musician playing wind instruments, mainly oboe, in Salem Symphonic Winds, Salem Orchestra and Winds of the Willamette wind quintet.  From time to time he also plays for musicals and other groups.

In between checking out plants and great conversation that continued over dinner at Roberts Crossing Restaurant on River Road (why can't we have a high quality, reasonable priced eatery in my neighborhood like this?), Kevin and I made a dash to Larry Lauer's garden nearby garden and that will be the subject of my next 'On the Road Again' post.

Did We Give Up on the Recessive Amoenas too Early?

By Kevin Vaughn

Amoenas and variegatas have long been favorites of iris growers.  The early amoenas and variegatas were all derived from I. variegata and had many problems associated with that species, chiefly very veined hafts, and a pattern of striped falls rather than solid ones.  Breeders were persistent in their work, despite poor germination of crosses involving amoenas. Cultivars like the Dykes Medal winner dark purple amoena ‘Wabash’ and variegatas like ‘Mexico’ and ‘Pretender’ were very popular irises in their day and had covered up most of the problems in this breeding line.  In fact, ‘Wabash’ topped the AIS popularity poll for many years. Crosses of these recessive amoenas to yellow amoenas resulted in the unusual green amoena ‘Frosted Mint’ (one of my childhood favorites) and red amoena ‘Repartee’. (Editor's note: Kevin sent images of seedlings as examples and I do not have numbers for any of these photos, but they give an idea of what he is getting out of these lines.)

A revolution happened in the 50’s when Paul Cook found that I. reichenbachii had a dominant inhibitor of the TB anthocyanins in the standards only, resulting in amoenas, neglectas, and bicolor patterns only dreamed about in the past.  Paul’s ‘Whole Cloth’ won the Dykes Medal and most deservedly so as it was not only a beautiful iris but an important breeders’ iris as well. Almost all breeders made a few crosses with ‘Whole Cloth’ and generally with good results.  Moreover, these dominant amoenas had seed that germinated well and the flowers had none of the veined hafts so typical of the recessive amoenas of the past. People flocked to these amoenas, basically dropping the old recessive amoenas, although Jesse Wills, Catherine and Kenneth Smith and a few other brave souls kept the recessive amoenas going for a while. Catherine Smith’s ‘Bread and Wine’ may be the last of these, in the 1970’s.

In the MTBs, recessive amoenas and variegatas are alive and well!  In fact, if you breed MTBs you can’t help but getting them in spades.  As I looked through my patch of MTB seedlings this past spring, I saw many colors and patterns that I have not seen much or at all in the TBs.  The variety of variegatas is quite staggering, including those with patterning of colors on the falls, stitching on the standards, and several just in STRIPES.  In the opposite direction, my ‘Booyah’ and many of its seedlings had nearly solid falls with minimal haft marks. Amoenas followed the same patterns, with some striped variations in delicate stripes and some all-over versions as well as nearly solid colored falls.  When Rick Tasco, Roger Duncan and Keith Keppel stopped by one day, they were equally impressed in the variety of colors and patterns that were occurring in these recessive amoenas and variegatas.

When these recessive amoenas and variegatas are crossed into the plicatas and then recombined the variety of plicata patterns also increased with lots of strong bitoned and bicolor plicatas plus unusual distributions of the dots and spots.  I inherited a number of Jean Witt’s seedlings and she had explored these variegata-influenced plicatas a good bit. Crosses with them give even further variations. Some of these plicatas have the looks of things that Rick Ernst got out of his ‘Ring Around Rosie’ lines.  These tetraploid lines may have some variegata influence too.

Catherine Smith sent me a plant of ‘Repartee’ when I was a kid. I was impressed with how red the falls of that iris are and especially so when it bloomed in my garden in 1968!  Amazingly it still looks very red to me. ‘Repartee’ is a cross of the purple neglecta ‘Grosvenor’ with a yellow amoena and that overlay of strong purple with an inner yellow layer gives a very red effect.  Admittedly, ‘Repartee’ has some problems. The stalk is awful with buds toed in and the form of the flower is a bit “blobby”, although I have seen worse.

Fortunately yellow amoenas have improved a LOT since 1968 and I crossed several of them onto ‘Repartee’.  The F1 crosses of ‘Repartee’ X yellow amoenas gave almost all red amoenas/ pale variegatas. The stalks on these were much better than ‘Repartee’ and the forms began to approach the yellow amoenas.  Rather than sibbing these seedlings, I crossed them once again to yellow amoenas, hoping to obtain even better form. Those seedlings bloomed in 2018 and the improvements were noticeable. Much better forms and quite red falls were the norm.  Interestingly, several of these seedlings didn’t have solid falls but rather a splashed phenotype. Yellow amoenas have the dominant inhibitor I that suppresses anthocyanin production but the anthocyanins in amoenas are not fully inhibited by this gene.  It is possible that these anthocyanin-free sectors are due to some partial inhibition by I.  None of these is quite a finished product but they are interesting and with quite good color and very vigorous plants.  I’ll see ~50of the best of these red amoenas sib crossed (best form X best color) in the spring. I don’t expect any introductions from this line in the near future, but it’s been fun to see what the recessive amoenas can do.

This makes me wonder out loud whether we were wise in giving up on recessive amoenas too early despite their many problems.  Hopefully there will be a few more brave souls out there to use them in crosses.

The Mary Swords DeBaillon Medal 2019

The American Iris Society

Announces

The Mary Swords DeBaillon Medal 2019

'DARK DUDE' (Ron Betzer)

'LEMON ZEST' (Kevin Vaughn)

' MICHIGAN BELLE' (Jill Copeland)'

For the first time, three irises tied for the medal:

'Lemon Zest'--image by Louisiana Iris Farm

'Lemon Zest' ( Kevin Vaughn, R. 1998). Seedling F-32-1. LA, 24-28" (61-71 cm), Very early to early midseason bloom. Standards bright lemon yellow aging to creamy lemon with lemon green veins; style arms electric green; Falls bright lemon yellow, intense electric green signal area; heavily ruffled, lightly serrate. 'Heavenly Glow' X 'Vermilion Queen'. Louisiana Iris Farms 2009. Award of Merit 2015.

'Dark Dude'--imagbe by Ron Betzer

'Dark Dude' (Ron Betzer, R. 2010). Seedling 95-28-1. LA, 34" (86 cm), Midseason late bloom. Standards and style arms near black from the red side. Falls the same overlaid velvety black. Gold dagger signal. Lightly ruffled. ''Bout Midnight' x 'Margaret Lee'. Plantation Point 2010. Award of Merit 2015.

'Michigan Belle'--image by Ensata Gardens

'Michigan Belle' ( Jill Copeland, R. 2007). Seedling 5-K. LA, 30" (76 cm), Midseason bloom. Standards rosy violet (RHS 70B); style arms red violet (184B); Falls rosy purple (70A) to rosy violet (78A), back yellow (8A), 1/2" rosy red violet (184B) edge, signal bright yellow (9A) spray pattern. 'Jack Attack' X 'Plantation Belle'. Ensata 2007. Honorable Mention 2012. Award of Merit 2015.

This medal is restricted to Louisiana (LA) irises. It is named in honor of Mary Swords DeBaillon (1888-1940). When Mary DeBaillon realized how varied Louisiana irises were and what lovely garden plants they were, she amassed the largest collection of Louisiana irises in the world. She was tireless in promoting these irises as good garden plants and in encouraging any who would listen to grow them. She gained considerable fame as a naturalist and native plant collector.

The World of Irises blog will be posting once a day all of the medal winners. The entire list of winners can be found at the AIS website, the AIS Encyclopedia and later in the AIS Bulletin, IRISES.

Border Irises

By Kevin Vaughn

I grew up in MA in the AIS of the 60’s. One of the constants of gardens of that era was the use of either Pewee or Paltec to border or face down the TB plantings. 

Paltec

Although they are irises, they looked sort of small and sad bordering the TBs as they were so much less sophisticated than the TBs they surrounded and didn’t make a really effective edging (I still find this the same even with the advancement in MTBs; they look best with themselves not facing down TBs).  Harold Knowlton was one of the first to actually hunt out a solution and so his “delightful runts”, small plants that segregated from his TB breeding, were planted as clumps at the corners and sometimes edging the beds.  Unknowingly, he had created a new class of irises. The proportions of his iris were nearly ideal: flowers under 8 ½” in height plus width with a ratio of 3:1 of height of the stalk/ combine height and width of the flower. The use of these smaller irises at the bed corners was especially effective at lowering the eye towards the corners.  In Harold’s mind, it would be great to have a whole series of these irises and he shared this enthusiasm for the runts and how much more effective they were than Pewee or Paltec in providing an edging for the TB beds.   And with that the Border Bearded class was started.  Other New England hybridizers followed suit, with Miriam Corey’s Little Brother, Lowry’s Two Bits, and Buttrick’s Clarendon Springs used in similar manner in their gardens. 

Buttrick Garden

In the Tuft’s garden in Grafton, the border iris were use in what you might call the “mini-me” effect.  A TB with a certain color or pattern was echoed at the edge of the bed with a BB of the same color, although finding a TB to replicate the exotically colored Jungle Shadows or boldly colored pink and purple bicolor Frenchi was impossible. 

Frenchi

Jungle Shadows

They were unique in all irises.  In Lynn Markham’s garden the BBs were used to face down the TBs but she also had a kidney shaped bed of just BBs. I loved it as the BBs were allowed to form clumps and were not overshadowed by their bigger brothers.  Here I saw Myrtle Wolff’s classic BBs Debbie Ann and Timmie Too, Melba Hamblen’s Tulare, and Marilyn Scheaff’s Little Lynn for the first time.  All would be in my garden subsequently.  In my garden, Miss Ruffles and Botany Bay were planted as large clumps at the corners of the TB bed and a number of others were grown to face down the TBs including Harold Knowlton’s Cricket and Pearl Cup.

Tulare

The TBs of that era weren’t the “fat ladies” that we have now so that even without trying to produce BBs smaller segregants fell out of crosses for TBs and many of these early BBs had fine proportion.  Seedlings from Rippling Waters, Lipstick, many of the Hall pinks and dark plicatas, Black Forest, reds, and Golden Flash gave lots of BB seedlings in exquisite proportions.  A few people, like Myrtle Wolff, actually pulled out the large seedlings, selecting especially for the runts.  Bennett Jones, Maybelle Wright, and Lynn Markham made crosses on purpose for BBs and gave us a string of great plants that were good-growing irises that stayed in class.

It is unfortunate that these lofty ideals and great beginnings were somehow lost in a flood of weak plants with oversize flowers that overgrew the class when over-fertilized.  Because of these poor growers with over-size flowers, the BB class suffered from a poor public perception, despite the number of ones that were fine plants.

Fortunately, the ideal of vigorous, well-proportioned plants suitable to edge TB beds and where TBs would look out of place because of their size, still lives on today.  Although there are certainly BBs that fall out of straight TB crosses, the Dykes Medalist Brown Lasso, being an outstanding example, a better approach has come from making deliberate crosses for these irises.  So hybridizers of late have used a three pronged approach:

• Cross BBs with other BBs or smallish TBs
• Cross BBs with the very vigorous IBs
• Incorporate 48 chromosome species such as I aphylla or I.reichenbachii into the breeding lines to produce more well-proportioned, better-branched stalks.

All of these approaches have netted iris that are not only good garden plants but also reliably in class irises.  This last spring, clumps of East Hampton and Venus Blush, planted on the corners of a TB bed and larger clumps of My Cher of Happiness, First in Line, Mermaid’s Dream, and Dance Gypsy effectively edged a large TB planting.  A narrow bed was planted solidly to BBs and was one of my favorites in my garden, it was like “Honey I shrunk the TBs!”.  So, if you have been disappointed by some of the BBs of the past, please give these new BBs a try.  They are outstanding plants and serve a vital purpose in the garden.

Irises as Part of the Perennial Border

By Kevin Vaughn

I grew up in Massachusetts in the AIS of the 60’s and when we went on tours the iris were not grown like a corn field but rather as a part of a garden picture. 

'Cup Race' was one of the famous irises to come out of the Stedman Buttrick garden.
Image courtesy of Schreiner's Iris Gardens.

Some of these gardens were impressive beyond words.  Leola Fraim’s, Miriam Corey’s and Stedman Buttrick’s gardens were amazing collections of irises but housed with an equally impressive array of other perennials.  Almost every garden had three perennials that bloomed essentially along with the irises. Peonies, in shades of rose and pink, were used to complement the abundant blues of the irises, and were especially effective against clumps of blue Siberian irises.  The peonies were large enough that they could almost be used as shrubs in these borders.  Oriental poppies were very much the rage in that era. The Fischer Oriental poppies brought to the public a range of colors and forms that had not been seen previously.   Clean pinks, whites, and raspberry shades were now in the palette of colors available to the gardener in addition to the more vibrant (and less easy to use in landscaping) oranges and reds.   When the Countess von Stein Zeppelin visited from Germany, she was so impressed that she negotiated with Mr. Fischer for seeds and plants of hers so that she could develop her own strain for European gardeners. In Massachusetts, lupines were almost weeds (in fact they have naturalized in places in Maine) and the Russell strain offered clear colors and much better density of the flowers on the heads than in previous strains.  One plant that was popular in Massachusetts at that time was the gas plant (Dictamnus).  Mrs. Corey had actually crossed the dark rose and white strains and had several unusual shades of white veined pink and clear pink.  These are very solid plants. One of the fond memories of my youth in Massachusetts was blooming a seedling from Mrs. Corey’s strain and also lighting the gas with a match.  Odd that you don’t see them more used today.

Besides what we were observing at iris peak almost every one of these gardens featured daffodils and other spring bulbs, daylilies and towards the shadier portions, hosta.  In many cases, these “other companion plants” became interests of their owners too and almost everyone dabbed a little pollen from one of these groups as well as the iris.  Consequently, the collections of these plants were also state of the art.  A visit to these gardens even before or after iris peak was still a treat.

All of these yards had another component that most of us don’t think of as part of the garden: beautiful pristine lawns that bordered every bed.  Lawns are like the frame on the picture. They offer a refreshing green that cools the effect of the garden and sets off all the plantings.   In the Buttrick garden, these lawns flowed gently down to the banks of the scenic Concord River.

Polly Bishop, who was my mentor, had a lovely perennial garden, although not on the scale of the bigger gardens in Region 1.  She had crossed pansies with Johnny jump-ups to create a strain of hardy hybrids that self-sowed and blanketed the irises and bloomed throughout the year.  These were shallow-rooted plants and provided a living mulch around the bearded irises in the winter. In Polly’s garden, hardy succulents such a sedums and hens-and-chickens, were used to highlight the beds as well as many other rock garden type plants. These plants liked the same sharp-drained soil conditions as the bearded irises and added interest in both foliage and in flower.

Admittedly, that it is MUCH easier to manage irises in rows in terms of cultivation.  You can’t run a rototiller through a perennial border!  One only has to look at the magnificent display gardens at Schreiner’s here in Salem Oregon to see how effective irises can be as part of a much bigger picture.  I’m talking to myself somewhat here too.  Although I don’t do corn rows, I do use raised beds chiefly of bearded irises.  The spurias and Siberians are much more integrated into the borders and the Pacific Coast Natives are incorporated into the shade borders.  Now to work on those bearded beds Kevin!