By Andi Rivarola
A warm welcome to those who are seeing IRISES, the Bulletin of The American Iris Society for the first time. If you are a member of The American Iris Society I hope you enjoy this new issue.
The Summer 2021 issue of the AIS Bulletin will be available online soon, accessible via the Emembers section of the AIS website. The print copy has been mailed via the U.S. Post Office. On the cover, I. reichenbachii by Tom Waters; see story on page 29.
Note: to access this area of the website you must have a current AIS Emembership. (AIS Emembership is separate from the normal AIS membership.) Please see the Electronic Membership Information area of the AIS website for more details.
On page 10 Howie Dash makes a plea for auction items as he and Scarlett Ayres finish up their preparations for the Las Cruces, NM National Convention of The American Iris Society. He says, "Please go through your closets, storage boxes, garage, and basement looking for donations of clean treasures of any kind for the Silent Auction. There will be people there who love irises including people who love iris books, iris dishes, iris clothing, old iris catalogs, gardening items, and IRIS ANYTHING!"
Don't miss Section Happenings on pages 14 and 15, it contains great information about AIS Sections such as, the Median Iris Society, the Spuria Iris Society, HIPS (the Historic Iris Preservation Iris Society), and the Novelty Iris Society.
The AIS Board is meeting in person this Fall, read the information and sign up for the meeting by filling out a form located on page 17.
Youth Views is on page 29 by Cheryl Deaton with information about the 2020 Clarke Cosgrove memorial Award for Youth Achievement.
Information about the AIS Foundation's Ackerman Youth Essay Contest, by Debbie Strauss on pages 20 through 25.
A great reprint from this very blog by Tom Waters, the article is called "Tappying the Potential of Iris reichenbachii," on pages 29 through 31.
Lastly, a second article was reprinted from this blog: "The Next Generation: Starting PCI Seeds," by none other than Kathleen Sayce on pages 32 — 33.
There's a lot more to see and read in this edition of IRISES, either in digital or print formats.
Not a member of The American Iris Society? Please see our website for information about becoming one: http://irises.org/
Happy Gardening!
