A New Iris Season is Just Beginning

by Mel and Bailey Schiller

 Season 2022/2023 is upon us! 

Our family has been frantically getting the field cleaned and the gardens ready in preparation for hosting open garden weekends here at Smokin Heights throughout October. Over the past couple of days, we were finally seeing some sunshine; but the weather forecast is for more rain in the coming week. 

Our new imported irises are settling in nicely, and we are not concerned about them blooming this year.  We would rather see rhizome increase as plants adjust to their new surroundings. 

We finished replanting irises just after Easter this year, which is very early for us. Taking this into account, we believe our season is running two to three weeks behind. Winter has been cold, wet, and windy . . . much like our Oregon iris family experienced last season. As winter drags on, we haven’t experienced as many warm days as we normally have in years past. However, daylight savings time begins today and with it has come beautiful sunshine.

Iris fields at Smokin Heights

Bloom started with our standard dwarf bearded irises. Intermediates and arilbreds with some very early tall bearded irises are blooming also.

Seedling H98-2

Seedling F5-3

New import 'Royal Flame' (Tasco 2021, AB/OGB) 

Just looking at the downloads from our camera we have already taken well over 500 photographs. We are well and truly into hybridizing with around 50 crosses completed already! 

A new iris season brings new hope of better times ahead. Last week was the one-year anniversary of the loss of our son and brother Braiden. Every iris season is going to be marked by Braiden's loss. 

Grief really is a huge burden to carry.  The irises give us a focus and something to work towards. When bloom is happening we are running around with our pencils, tweezers, and labels plus the camera. Spreading iris love where ever we go!!

Seedling G-3

                                                                          

Seedling I4-A

                                                                

Closeup of Seedling H98-2

Seedling H2-1

Seedling H5-A

                                                                                

Seedling H7-1

Seedling C91-2

Our fields have a lot of fun iris and we are enjoying hybridizing with them. One thing we have noticed is that our hybridizing goals change each season. As the different seedlings emerge, our minds wander to more far-off goals. Each bloom keeps us driven for success and focused on achieving the very best in irises we produce. 

If you would like to keep up to date with what is blooming at Smokin Heights please follow us on our Facebook page! 

We hope that our overseas followers enjoy our bloom pictures from Down Under. We hope the winter months are kind to you all and before you know it spring will be knocking on your door!

Stay warm.

Smokin Heights New Introductions 2022

by Mel and Bailey Schiller

The rains have arrived. It is so nice to have a few muddy patches around our garden. We are forever thankful for the natural rainfall we receive. The weeds are growing, and the pastures around our house are greening up with grain crops and pasture paddocks. 

The irises we replanted in April are starting to show signs of growth. Also, weeds seem to like this newly planted area! Here we offer a peek at our new Smokin’ Heights introductions for the coming season. Our family is proud of these hybrids and hopes you admire them like we do.

'Haunts My Soul' TB (B. Schiller 2022)

'Haunts My Soul' was registered in 2020 and was scheduled for release in 2020, but we accidentally threw out half of the stock thinking it was a not-so-nice sibling. But, never mind…onward and upward.

E41-1: ('Italian Master' X 'Captain Thunderbolt') TB (M. Schiller 2022)

We fell in love with this seedling at first sight. It has the same pattern as ‘Captain Thunderbolt’, but in maroon colouring! Name applied for is  'Zoophonic Dancer'.

E23-3: (('Sassy Talk' sib x 'Power and Design' pod parent sib) X 'Woven Sunlight') TB (B. Schiller 2022)

This one will not go unnoticed in the garden; you can see it from a mile away. It is like a beacon of light! Name applied for is 'Equally Wild'.

E23-6: (('Sassy Talk' sib x 'Power and Design' pod parent sib) X 'Woven Sunlight') TB (B. Schiller 2022)

A sibling to 'Equally Wild', this is Bailey's favourite of the cross because of the high contrast between the ground colour and plicata edge. Name applied for is 'Fancy Like'.

E23-11: (('Sassy Talk' sib x 'Power and Design' pod parent sib) X 'Woven Sunlight') TB (B Schiller 2022)

Bailey had great success with this cross. The pod produced some very different seedlings. This was another that was too good not to introduce. Bailey loves the green tones to an iris as the colouring is very different. He likes different! Name applied for is 'Sandsear Storm'.

F50-6: (Blyth A117-1 X 'Boston Cream') TB (B. Schiller 2022)

A delightful broken-coloured plicata. Of course, this is another example of “different" as far as irises are concerned. Splotches, dots and blotches...what is not to love? Name applied for is 'Lunacy'.

E14-1: ('Emblematic' X Blyth Z85-:('Tender Heart' sib x sib) TB (B. Schiller 2022)

A very tasteful iris in the perfect colour! Form is awesome. Name applied for is 'She Be Magic'.

E37-3:('Volcanic Glow' X 'Inside Job') TB (M Schiller 2022)

A sibling to last year's 'Nordic Lover', worthy of introduction this year. Hot summer tones in colouring in a very unique luminata-plicata pattern. Name applied for is 'Deva Summer'.

Looking over the field, it appears the growth is very slow at the moment when compared to the same time last year. We are expecting a big year with both first- and second-year seedlings blooming. We are already seeing some bloom stalks in the second-year plantings which have not been replanted. We cannot wait for spring!
 

This N That

by Mel and Bailey Schiller

Time has run away from us these past months, and I realized it is our turn for a World of Irises blog post. Last week was a blur. We replanted around five acres of iris rhizomes and hired some help to get the job done. It was amazing to complete in seven days what normally stretches over months!

With that hard task behind us, we would like to share some of the reselect seedlings from the past season. Some of these hopeful varieties could be registered and introduced in the future. 

-

C188-1

(‘Seeking Attention’ x Y105-B)

Oh yeah! This bloom is the epitamy of why Bailey hybridizes. Broken coloured flat seedling....the only goal in his mind! This seedling is a good start in the right direction. 

  H63-B

The seedlings re-selected are awesome for their first bloom: excellent branching, height, colour, bud count, and growth habit. We won't have a lot of work to do if they keep growing and blooming like this! 

H14-F

(‘Chaos Theory’ x ‘Fiasco’)

Bailey is making wonderful progress on diversifying flat, novelty irises. The colours that are starting to come through are amazing—this is one to watch!

H163-3

(‘Front Of The Line’ x ‘Clothos Web’)

This seedling has intrigued us since its maiden bloom. The standards are a particular draw with the odd blotchy placement of the unusual spots. This past season we have used this particular iris in our hybridizing. We hope to germinate seeds.

 

I118-1

(‘Shaman's Magic’ x ‘Onlooker’)

We have also taken a fancy to arilbred irises. We love them and are striving to introduce our very own into this range. This particular cross only had the one bloom this past season, but we look forward to seeing more of this one next season. 

F8-4

(‘Dark Matter’ SDB x ‘Leopard Print’ SDB)

This little cutie looks like it may shape up to be a broken coloured SDB. We noticed it blooming and it gets to stay for another season.

Last season we experienced the unbelievable loss of my son and Bailey's brother. This season has been a blur and photos have not been the best quality. We hope for a much better season all around in 2022. 

We are also organizing seeds and cross tags from 2021. We managed to successfully produce over 180 crosses that will be planted into germination boxes over the next couple of weeks.  It is still incredibly warm here with next to no rain in sight. The seed will be going straight into boxes and we will water them daily from there. They stay outdoors to get exposure to cold temperatures, frost and hopefully some natural rainfall. 

In 2022, our work at Smokin Heights will be part of the National Iris Convention. It is being held in South Australia and our garden will be on tour Sunday. (Albeit the garden is open every weekend through October for those wishing to pay us a visit.) We sincerely look forward to your company.

Here in the Southern Hemisphere, winter is on its way sooner or later. We look forward to opening Facebook and seeing all the wonderful posts of iris photos from all over the Northern Hemisphere. We are blessed that telecommunications have advanced so far so we can share experiences between countries. 

Happy blooming season everyone!

 

c
 

Smokin Heights Top 10 Bearded Iris Varieties for 2022

 by Mel and Bailey Schiller

This past season has seen many downs compared to the ups in our life.  We are having "first anniversaries" of my son and Bailey's brother Braiden's passing in late September, 2021. Iris season will never be the same again. On March 5th, we celebrated what would of been Braiden's 26th birthday. As a family we are on an emotional roller coaster, yet life must go on.

Bailey and I have had the irises to occupy our minds for the season. We have done our very best to cope. However, photos are lacking, information is lacking .... Some days it is just too much. The ground is extremely dry and dusty. Autumn weather suggests that winter won't be too far away. We're having extremely cool to mild days with cool evenings. Daylight-saving time will be coming to an end in April. We have started to re-plant the seedlings and will push on to finish before it gets too cold.

As in prior years, we produced a record number of irises which were our best sellers from this past season. We concluded sales as Bailey is back at university and we need all the time we have available to replant our seedlings and our main field.

The following are the top ten bearded irises from our sales list for season 2021/2022.  I must say we were shocked to see the increased sales of border bearded and intermediate bearded irises in the listing! As Australian iris growers and hybridizers, we advise our customers in selecting plants well suited to their growing conditions. Some parts of our beautiful country get hit with extreme wind, and the median-sized border and intermediate irises are perfect for spring colour in these adverse conditions. Some gardeners do not have a protected garden where everything can be successfully planted and thrive. Each of us must find the right plants and work with what we have to create our little piece of heaven at home. 

We shall begin at number ten and work our way to the top-selling iris at number one:

'Coralina'

Number 10 - 'Coralina' is a delectable tall bearded iris bred by Thomas Johnson and registered in 2014. We love this peach-toned iris with all its gorgeous ruffling. It produces stunning clumps of bloom in spring.

'Celtic Tartan'

Number 9 - Tall bearded iris 'Celtic Tartan' is a pretty luminata introduced by Keith Keppel in 2015 This pretty iris is an easy grower; and for those who love the luminata pattern, it is a favourite!

'But Darling'

Number 8 - 'But Darling is a beautifully formed tall bearded iris introduced by Schreiners in 2016. It performs beautifully in our garden and makes a statement. Visitors to the garden comment regularly on the beauty of this iris.

'Boy Genus'

Number 7 - Border bearded iris 'Boy Genius' was introduced by Joe Ghio in 2012. This would have to be a favourite amongst our collection of border bearded irises at Smokin Heights. We think this iris is stunning!

'Romeo's Passion' 

Number 6 -  In 2003, Barry Blyth put forth intermediate iris 'Romeo's Passion.' This little beauty is our  favourite red IB. The silkiness of the bloom draws your eye. In a large clump it is stunning!

'Kissed By Fire'

Number 5 - 'Kissed By Fire' (Mel Schiller 2019) is a easy grower that puts on a gorgeous display! Bailey and I were unsure when I introduced this iris, purely because the breeding was a little older than the others I had bred. We are glad we went with our gut instincts and introduced it. It has proven to win gardeners' hearts over and over!  

'Thrill Ride'

Number 4 -  We love the banding on the falls of  tall bearded 'Trill Ride' (M. Sutton 2015). The great depth of colour shines through. It has proven to be a fantastic growing variety that produces large rhizomes quickly. 

'Dragon Kiss'

Number 3 - The unusual smokiness of this blue orchid-pink 'Dragon Kiss' (Barry Blyth 2013/14) wins gardeners over every time. Oh, and we have discovered people love collecting irises purely for the names. People who collect dragon-themed things add this one to their collections time and time again!

'Beside Myself'

Number 2 - Tall bearded 'Beside Myself' (Barry Blyth 2016/17) is a pretty plicata with large blooms. It has wormed its way into gardeners' hearts. Gardeners don't always want a solid-coloured iris. Plicatas are definitely a top choice to add variety to the garden colour scheme. 

'A Certain Girl'

Number 1 - 'A Certain Girl' was the most popular iris sold at Smokin Heights for season 2021/2022 . This exquisite iris was introduced by Barry Blyth in 2018. A tall bearded, it has gorgeous yummy colouring for the romantic cottage garden look. In our garden it gets extremely windy and as it is a tall stemmed variety it can topple easily.  This past season it put on a wonderful early display with plenty of growth.  

We would like to thank our followers, customers, friends, and most of all the gardeners of Australia for trusting and believing in Smokin Heights to deliver our product throughout Australia. We thank those who have lifted our spirits in times of despair, who have messaged, phoned or emailed, sending uplifting powerful messages, and those who have given warm hugs and just been there for us this past season. 

We thank you from the bottoms of our hearts. We look forward to enjoying photos of irises blooming in the Northern Hemisphere and to one day returning to the U.S.A for iris season!  

Re-plant at Smokin Heights 2021/22

By Mel Schiller

During our last blog post in January 2021, we were in the middle of digging and trimming irises and getting ready for re-plant in South Australia.

We have now completely finished re-plant for this season. Give it a few months and standard dwarf bearded irises will be blooming. It is crazy how fast the days are going by.

This past season we were not overly happy with a section of the iris field and the way rhizomes were growing. We shifted fresh soil from around our property into this area. 

Once the soil was smoothed over our dog Aura inspected it.

The soil consisted of top soil with some clay for added benefit to rhizomes. At planting time we also top dress fertilizer so that it is worked into the soil prior to planting.

 

We completed trimming iris fans by the time the soil was ready to plant in. Rainfall has been extremely low so we needed to water the ground by hand to get some moisture in before tilling could be done.

Once the ground is prepared we lay water drip line down to work as a guide to get rows planted straight.

 

Mel plants the field while Bailey organizes all rhizomes into categories to reflect our catalogue. This makes varieties so much easier to find!

We plant all the irises by hand. We cannot plant rhizomes on the surface because the searing hot sun will scald and burn them. We get much better results if each rhizome is pushed into the ground tip first and the soil smoothed out behind the rhizome. The rhizome is around 1 cm under dirt.  We cut old venetian blinds into pieces for labels or plastic display tags.  Venetian labels are written with Hobbytex (an Australian-made craft paint that comes in a ballpoint tube) and the plastic tags with pencil. 

Because the ground hasn't had water on it for many months the soil becomes hydrophobic. Water from the dripline system eventually gets moisture into the ground. 

This field is now home to tall bearded irises only. The other varieties are elsewhere on the property this season! We ran out of room.......😏

We place rows of water dripline about a foot apart, with a wider walkway between rows. This season we planted each variety of iris 2 rhizomes wide, staggering as we go.  

Each row was then top dressed with a pre-emergent herbicide and we timed it beautifully. Shortly after we received some much needed rain which fell at exactly the right time. The irises and pre-emergent were watered in by rainfall. The pre-emergent stops germination of self-seeding weeds by putting a barrier on the soil. Since irises are not germinating, the pre-emergent does not affect them in any way. 

Sunrise is an especially beautiful time of day. Colours of the new day are gorgeous and there are few noises except birdlife and the surrounding animals. I find it an important way to start my day!

My eldest son and brother to Bailey working up the area where we needed more room for irises....😜

Bailey is now working on this season's catalogue and he will be starting to update the website shortly. With bloom around 3 months away time is flying by and the gardens still need to be maintained. Keep an eye on our Facebook page "Smokin Heights" for regular updates and to follow our bloom season. 

 

An Iris Journal Entry from Down Under!

By Mel Schiller

The sting of summer is about to hit Southern Australia. At this time of year it is important for us to water our garden beds as things dry out very quick. We have not had decent rain for weeks, but we also have not had excessively hot weather either, which is a blessing! 

The iris are doing really well. We are so ever grateful that our business has thrived in these unprecedented times and people have been using their time to get out in the garden and move on and forward with life. Iris are a fantastic plant to have in Australia for their hardiness and the fact that they do not require massive amounts of water. 

As we go into January 2021 we look ahead at the work that is yet to be done to complete the 2020 iris season. With 40 plus degree Celsius days (104 F) for the next 3 months, usually next to no rain and the ground becoming rock hard, we reserve our early evenings to dig orders, and get them washed ready to ship out. 

Tasmania and Western Australia require a special permit to allow rhizome into these states, and through Covid shut downs we had a delay in receiving our certification. Onward and upwards we are currently digging these orders and preparing them for shipment. 

We are also walking the fields daily to check for seed pod ripeness. Once we see cracks appearing on the pods, we collect and split open the pods to let the seed dry out. These will be planted in April. 

A week before Christmas the roses were dead headed and the garden beds have a general prune and tidy up with a spot of weeding as well. We do not go over the entire field and remove the dead iris bloom stems, as this is too time consuming. This will be done at replant time at the end of February. 

Before

After

Bailey is studying chemical engineering at the university and Mel works a 30-hour week in hospitality.  Time management is a must to achieve everything we set out to do. Our love of iris drive us forward to reaching our goals. 

                                                    'Magic Madness' (B Schiller 19) TB

We are starting to look at the iris which will be introduced next season, and those that will be included in the next seasons catalogue. Bailey works on the catalogue that we produce between Uni studies. 

We successfully imported iris from America in September and look forward to them coming out of the Australian Quarantine Facility sometime in the next 6 weeks.  They are looking fantastic!

The field replant will begin in March with some iris being taken out of the field and planted elsewhere to recover and other varieties being added for sale next season.

We sincerely hope 2021 is super kind to everyone and that we all grow and evolve to achieve our own goals. We thank you for taking the time to follow us on Facebook and thank Bryce for allowing us to be part of his blogging team. He does such a wonderful job of keeping us updated and organized. 

Here is a sneak peak of what we are thinking of introducing next season. Mel and Bailey x

E11-1

                                    E37-1

                                                                        D50-1

                                      E9-1