Showing posts with label iris shows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iris shows. Show all posts

Monday, June 23, 2014

Surprise!

Griff Crump

Renee suggested that I might share some of this year's surprises.

The biggest and best surprise was recovery of an introduced variety that I thought had been lost.  Two years ago, I dug and lined out La Cumparsita, introducing it in 2013.  Luckily, before I sold any of it, it bloomed in two convention gardens and wasn't the right flower.  I saw photos and was mystified until some of the lined-out plants bloomed in my own garden and also were the same nondescript purple seen in the photos.  Clearly, the marker had been switched before the digging, probably during weeding, and an adjacent clump had been dug.  I was tempted to rip out the whole planting, but, since some of the lined-out clumps hadn't bloomed, I tossed only those that had bloomed and left the rest in place.  This spring, two of those which had been spared bloomed and were La Cumparsita!  It will take a couple of years to build up stock again, but I said to some of my fellow irisarians that if nothing else good happened this year, it was still a good year!

La Cumparsita


Other surprises were winning Best Seedling of Show at the Fredericksburg Area Iris Society's spring show, the Chesapeake and Potomac Iris Society's spring show and the Region 4 spring show at Timonium, Maryland.

The winner at Fredericksburg was tall bearded 062D1:

062D1
and at Chesapeake and Potomac, standard dwarf seedling 092B4:

092B4

At the Regional show at Timonium, I counted on the judges adhering to the judges' handbook, which requires only one bloom to be open on a seedling.  Although I must admit that I was surprised by my wins at Fredericksburg and Winchester, I felt that my entry at Timonium was a real winner, but would the judges vote for an entry which had only one last bloom and the shriveled remains of the other eight buds drooping from its branches?  Yes!  They went by the book and chose it. 

082L13


This is a product of Coffee Whispers X Blackbeard's Daughter.  It's a dramatic introduceable, and I'm looking forward to good things following from it.

Another very pleasant surprise was the appearance of a first-year seedling, 13P20, which displayed a remarkable  progression of blossom form, opening to resemble an iris of many decades ago:

 13P20

But, as a day passes, a later-in-time form develops:

 

Finally, a modern form is achieved.  At the right moment, all three forms are displayed on the branches.



If this seedling prospers and blooms true to its initial performance, it will be quite interesting.










Saturday, June 15, 2013

Hi Desert Iris Society Best Artistic Design Winner 2013



By Andi Rivarola

Last month I had the good fortune to be a judge at the Hi Desert Iris Society's Spring Show in Lancaster, California. The show was fantastic with lots of bloom, and a fair amount of participants made the show a great success in my eyes. Nevertheless, many of the members mentioned strong winds in the days leading up to the show, but I did not see any signs of it. Stalks were well groomed and there was a nice variety of iris specimens.

I went home with a very uplifting feeling due to what I'm about to recount.

The young lady on the picture below, a teen and youth member, won Best Artistic Design beating all other entries -- all adults included -- in the advanced, novice and intermediate categories. The other two judges and I were completely fascinated by the design's completeness and utter commitment to the theme, which was Andy Warhol. (All the themes were named after real artists in history). Well, Warhol's pop art theme was masterfully recreated to the teeth. Her arrangement included a pot that represented Warhol's Campbell Soup can, and the irises included four different colors to also match the four-color creations by the master.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Katherine Shannon, Hi Desert Iris Society Artistic Design Winner for 2013.