Season 2021 at Smokin Heights

By Mel and Bailey Schiller

This spring was long and drawn-out, for which we are very thankful. At the end of September we lost our son and brother to a tragic motorbike accident, and this affected our iris season dramatically. The situation made it difficult for us to focus, but we are doing our best with what we have been dealt. 

The late-blooming varieties are now in bloom, which for us is a month later than normal. It has been incredibly hard to focus on getting photos of the seedlings, let alone the remainder of the iris fields. Some days are easier than others. 

We had a lot of rain this year, probably triple what we normally would experience in October and November. Bailey informed me yesterday that for a couple of my pods that had set, the stem was rotting. This has never happened before. Normally it is dry and incredibly hot in October and November; but this week, in December, we are experiencing hot days, which would have been the norm  a month ago.

Last year Mel and Bailey planted around 8000 maiden bloom seedlings. Most of these came from Barry Blyth. We also have around 1000 2nd year seedlings which we needed to go through, as these were the last crosses we made during our visit to Oregon back in 2019. Add to those the many seedlings we have grown and need to evaluate for introduction.  

Bailey is hybridizing for novelties. Mel is hybridizing arils and working on blacks. These are our main goals -  the beautiful irises that pop up in the meantime are bonuses. 

F106-1: ('Inner Darkness' X 'Black Lipstick'). This has beautiful blocky falls and a spicy fragrance. The color holds up in our heat and it doesn't wilt quickly. The foliage is lovely and clean. 

This gorgeous arilbred seedling ('Soaring Falcon' x 'Onlooker') had four rhizomes and all four, unfortunately, bloomed. I fell in love with this seedling immediately on first sight. I left the rhizomes in the ground hoping and praying for new growth, but it does not look promising. 

H172-1: ('Lancer' x 'Eye On America') AB. Huge blooms on strong stems make this AB a standout. We love it! Heading for intro....

Bailey's novelties have really taken off this season. So many awesome color combinations on plants with variegated foliage. Then the drumroll: the six-falled TB varieties he has been diligently working on. Here is a small sample of what is happening at Smokin Heights:

H27-B: ('Chaos Theory' X 'Full Disclosure'). 'Full Disclosure' has been a very good parent for six-falled TBs, but unfortunately it doesn't give much variety color-wise. Although this seedling isn't the most interesting color, it does have exceptional form.

H17-D: ('Untamed Glory' X 'Full Disclosure'). A little boring color-wise but very consistent with nice branching. It should be good to use further in hybridizing.

H14-A: ('Chaos Theory' X 'Fiasco') This is one of very many seedlings selected from this cross. This one stood out because of the nice pattern and overall good plant habits. We really like the look of the "belly" stripe down the falls. 

F58-ZZ: (X150-A: 'Painted Caravans' sib X 'Bold Pattern').The favorite of the bunch just because of the pattern. You can see from the photo that this seedling has nice branching and bud placement. 

The seedlings have finished blooming and we are still labelling photos from this past season. We can now begin the task of digging rhizome orders while the seed pods ripen. Over Christmas time we will begin removing unfavourable seedlings. 

Bailey and I sincerely wish you all a Merry Christmas. May you enjoy your Christmas time with loved ones. Remember it's not the presents under the Christmas tree that count, it is having those who you value most with you. Warm wishes from Down Under. 

Photo Essay: Let There Be Light!

by Mike Unser

One of the joys of iris photography for me is capturing the sunlight playing thru the blooms. It is especially dramatic just after sunrise or before sunset when the light comes in at an angle, making for intense colors and shadows. 

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the 2021 bloom season featuring sunlight.

'Treasure Island'

'Kathryn Fryer'

 

 

 

Read more about these irises using the following links to the Iris Encyclopedia:

'Treasure Island'

'St. Crispin'

'Spring Festival'

'Malacca Straits'

'Kathryn Fryer'

'Harvest Splendor'

'Foaming Seas'

'Flora Zenor'

'Edgewood'

'Dawn Reflection'

'Coral Chalice'

'Cairo'

'Buckskin'

'Aurifero'

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

Smokin Heights Hot Sellers so far for Season 20/21

 By Mel Schiller

Wow what a year so far and it isn't over yet! 

In my lifetime I think this year would have to be the windiest by far and as a tall bearded iris grower it spells disaster, especially living on a hilltop. Oh the challenges....I must say, as I type this blog, that we had a forecast of 8mm of rain yesterday and overnight we received much more....27mm.....the weather patterns are all over the place.

Anyway as we are in full swing with our iris season, time spent hybridizing has been down as it has been too wet--I never thought I would say that! Surprisingly the iris are coping well with the extra heavenly water we are receiving. The bloom stems are above and beyond normal this year. We are noticing also that the registered varieties are blooming not according to their registrations. Things that bloom early are blooming mid to late. Late bloomers are blooming mid season; all of this has never happened, until this year!

As the orders are coming in, we are noticing a pattern among purchases. Arils are among the top selling varieties this year and, of course, the broken coloured varieties too. 

As it stands here are our top 10 bearded iris for this season.

10. 'Diamonds and Rubies' (Blyth 14) TB What a statement this iris creates!

9. 'Eyes On You' (Black 12) OGB (1/2 Bred) An easing growing Aril variety.

8. 'Spiced Tiger' (Kasperek 96) TB A glowing broken coloured iris. We love it!

7. 'Line Drive' (M Sutton 07) IB A fabulous lined Intermediate iris: it is so pleasing to the eye!

6. 'Rim Of Fire' (Sutton 11) TB An extremely popular iris with that fiery red band on the falls.

5. 'Wicked Good' (Black 12) TB A beautiful blue and black bi-colour iris. 

4. 'Lancer' (Shockey 95) OGB A nice contrast in colour. 

3. 'Nigerian Raspberry' (Kasperek 95) TB Oh so pretty!

2. 'Serengeti Spaghetti' (Kasperek 99) TB An easy growing variety. 

1. 'Sand Dancer '(Tasco 10) OGB A favourite of ours and it is oh so different.

It is great to see so many people enjoying their gardens and wanting to make an impact with the bearded iris being a highlight to there garden. We personally love to plant iris with roses, lavender, alstroemeria, snap dragons, and aquilegias.

We are mid season at the moment and have met so many new people to iris. We hope you all continue with your love of gardening and creating a pleasant space for wind down time from this ever hectic, anxious world we now live in. Until next time....Happy Gardening 💜