Working Towards Our Goal

By Melissa and Bailey Schiller

As we head into autumn and winter we are frantically getting replant done. We have had no rain which makes the mind wander as to what is in store for this coming spring at Smokin Heights.

When this blog is published we will be enjoying bloom season in Oregon. As always we are extremely excited to share time with our American friends and dabble in a bit of hybridizing.

In our last installment we started to delve into our goals and current achievements in hybridising. We will continue with this theme for this installment.

E12-2: (Blyth X150-A: (Sunday Concert x Smart Money) X Quaffable)

Let's start with E12-2 (pictured above). This would have to be one of the best seedlings we have bloomed to date. A gorgeously ruffled white with a slight lemon flush at the midrib and beautiful frosted blue beards. At 33" stem with 8 buds, this Iris easily passed 1st year bloom protocol with ease.

E41-1: (Italian Master X Captain Thunderbolt)

You can see both parents coming into play with E41-1. The pattern is very reminiscent of 'Captain Thunderbolt' and the colour reminds us of 'Italian Master.' Nice and tall with 40" stems that carry 10 buds.

F44-2: (Colours of The Wind X C46-D: (Blonde Response sib))

We have been working the lined pattern for a few years now and we are finally starting to see hybrids that excite us. F44-2 is one of them. Super wide, overlapping falls make this a standout. The pattern itself is quite unique with the veining localised to the centre of the fall and is really set off by the bright apricot hafts and orange beards. Will be used quite a bit in years to come!

Finally we are going to write about some of the novelties we have been working on.

F23-1: (Striptease X Avenue Of Dreams)

Variegated foliage is one of Bailey's favourite traits. He has been working on expanding the different patterns and colours that non-variegated Iris have into Iris with variegated foliage. F23-1 is the start of a bicolour line with variegated foliage. We were more than pleased to see this bloom for the first time. Wonderful form and nice amount of ruffling add to its appeal.

F32-1: (Chaos Theory X New Perspective)

In our first installment we spoke about our goals in hybridising flat (6-falled) Iris. Here is one that had its maiden bloom in 2018. Lovely form and ruffling and also very consistent. We are very excited for what the future has in store for this form of Bearded Iris!

In our own minds what we are looking for in the blooms we want to register are wide overlapping hafts. Stems that are not overly tall as in our garden we have a lot of windy weather and stems get knocked over easily.  Standards that are upright. And we like different....different colours, patterns and variegation....What would you consider to be a standout bloom? 

Franciris 2019 Results

For the second time in three weeks, The World of Irises blog is pleased to report the results of an international competition, this time of The French Iris Society’s Franciris 2019. The competition took place in the Parc Floral de Paris, a public park and botanical garden located within the Bois de Vincennes in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, with the results announced on May 21.

Gary White, immediate past president of The American Iris Society, and Andi Rivarola, current first vice president, were on the judging panel in addition to Jerome Boulon, France, Lorena Montanari, Italy, and Fritts Lehmann, Germany.

First Place: ‘My Red Drums by Daniel Balland, France:

Image by Andi Rivarola

Image by Andi Rivarola

Martin (plaid shirt) receives his award--image by Sebastien Cancade

Second Place: ‘Marry the Night’ by Thomas Johnson, USA:

Images by Gary White

Third Place: NB-23-01 by Nicholas Bourdillon:

Image by Andi Rivarola

Nicholas Bourdillon receives his award--image by Sebastien Cancade

Fourth Place: ‘Church Lady’ by Tom Burseen, USA:

Image by Andi Rivarola

Fifth Place: ‘Locomotion’ by Thomas Johnson, USA:

Image by Andi Rivarola

Sixth Place: NB 14-34-01 by Nicholas Bourdillon:
Andi Rivarola writes: "In France, judges are required to elect the iris with the best perfume.

Our noses sampled all irises during the competition, and as a result, we elected the iris with the best aroma, which also happened to be one of the top ten — seedling NB 14-34-01 by French hybridizer Nicolas Bourdillon. What an exquisite lovely scent."

Image by Andi Rivarola

Seventh Place: ‘Mixed Signals' by Keith Keppel, USA:

Image by Sebastien Cancade

Eighth Place: ‘Belle Fille’ by Marky Smith, USA:

Image by Andi Rivarola

Ninth Place: ‘Howla Pena’ by Tom Burseen, USA:

Image by Andi Rivarola

Tenth Place: ‘Luminager’ by Hugh Stout, USA:

Image by Andi Rivarola

For more information about The French Iris Society click to open the link; for more information about The American Iris Society do the same thing.

How to Build Iris Beds

By Dennis Berry

Had some people, especially those in the Iris community, interested in how I put together the raised beds for Kim. Over the next week I’ll try to post the process of building this next set of beds. Over the weekend Kim and I discussed what she wanted and what I could fit and used marker paint to lay out the beds and paths. Didn’t get any pictures of that. The rain washed most of it away. Today I tilled the first bed for ease of digging and extra drainage. Didn’t till the whole area so I could still back the truck up to the new bed to offload dirt and sand. Monday I’ll start digging in the base blocks.

Next steps to how I build Kim’s raised beds. I lay out the first corner with mason’s twine. The yellow line is just a reference line. The red line is leveled and what I use to get the bed straight and level. This is the important one since we have no level land here in East Tennessee. A block at each end of the line tells me the height. I have had to back fill the low end on a couple beds to keep the opposite end from being underground. Next dig the trench for the block and start laying in. I do use a small level two ways across the blocks as I work to keep them level, tapping them in with a rubber mallet. Mostly though just line up the tops of the blocks with line. No mortar is used between blocks. Their held in with back filled dirt and the topping pavers. This bed is about 20 foot long and took me about two and a half hours to lay out and dig in the first side and ends.

Today, finish other side of bed. Rake the inside level and sweep top of blocks. We use construction adhesive to glue down the cap bricks. I like to wait at least a day before filling the bed to allow the adhesive time to set up. Caps on the beds we did two years ago are still still sticking well. Occasional problem where I got the glue a little thin or clip a corner with the wheel barrow. Simple fix to glue back down. Till next area and repeat the process. It will be a couple days before I fill these beds. Need to make a Lowe’s run tomorrow for supplies.

Rinse and repeat. Bed L2 done.

Bed L1 is now done and ready for planting. Had a couple of days off from bed building. We had a storm blow through and the dirt was too wet to work. Also had to make a supply run and spent Sunday visiting with my Mom and Dad. Filled the bed with topsoil and sand and then ran the tiller through it to mix well. Included a picture of the soil and sand we use. The topsoil you can get at Walmart. Lowe’s can get it also if you order a large enough quantity. We buy ours by the pallet. Walk into Lowe’s and order 10 pallets and they are glad to help. We use construction sand because it’s been washed so it has much less salt in it. Thank you to Mark Bolling for the help this morning. Always good to have friends that are thick skulled enough to volunteer to help you move 40lb bags of dirt and 50lb bags of sand. We’re now out of dirt so tomorrow it’s back to digging in bricks.

Construction of beds L1 through L4 is complete. A surprise to no one here, we need to buy more dirt. That means I get a coupled days off from building. This weekend we’ll go pick up another pallet of topsoil and begin filling these beds first of next week. Just in time as the guest irises that are scheduled to go in these beds should start arriving any time now.

Editors’ Note: We would like to thank Dennis Berry for permission to use his “how to” posts and images that first appeared on Facebook’s Iris Lovers. Dennis with his partner Kim Bowman, own and operate Dancing Dragons Iris Gardens 504 S. Jackson St., Morristown, TN  37813. Phone 423-300-1541. Their website is https://www.dancingdragonsiris.com and they will start to take new orders in the spring. One of the goals of their garden is to preserve irises hybridized by people in Region 7, AIS, Kentucky and Tennessee.

International Iris Competition in Florence 2019

The Italian Iris Society concluded the international iris competition at Florence on Saturday, May 11, 2019. The World of Irises is pleased to quickly bring the results to our readers. The head of the judging panel was Gary White, immediate past president of The American Iris Society. Andi Rivarola, current first vice-president of the AIS, was also a judge along with three judges from Italy: Valeria Roselli, Maurizio Marrami, and Laura Bassino.

In the tall bearded competition, the Premio Firenze (Gold Florin) offered by Guido Gonnelli in memory of “Beppe Gonnelli” went to ‘Chachar’ by Seidl Zdenek from the Czech Republic.

Andi Rivarola, Valeria Roselli, Maurizio Marrami, Laura Bassino, and Gary White.

Second and winning the Tuscany Regional Prize was ‘Lingua de Drago’ by Angelo Bolchi from Italy.

The results of the competition were announced in Florence's city hall with the mayor in attendance: At The Award ceremony in Palazzo Vecchio this morning, from left to right: American judge Andi Rivarola, Italian Judge Valeria Roselli, Jury President Gary White, President of Municipal Council Andrea Ceccarelli, Mayor Dario Nardella, our (Italian Iris Society) President Vincenzo Corti, Italian judges Laura Bassino and Maurizio Marrami. Image from Giardino dell' Iris.

Third went to ‘Enraptured’ by Schreiner’s Gardens in the United States and it won the Confindustria of Florence Prize.

Fourth, the Italian Iris Society Medal, went to ‘Piero Bargellini’: Charmanda by Klaus Burkhardt in Germany.

Fifth place, Honourable Mention, went to ‘Anima Triste’ by Angelo Garanzini of Italy.

Sixth place, Honourable Mention, went to ‘Voglio Tempo’ by Angelo Bolchi of Italy. 

Seventh place, Honourable Mention, went to E 06.05 by Siedl Zdenek of the Czech Republic.

Eighth place, Honourable Mention, went to ‘Hrom a Blesk’ by Siedl Zdenek.

Image by Gary White

Ninth place, Honourable Mention, went to Seidl Zdenek’s E 21.07.

Tenth place, Honourable Mention, went to Italy’s Roberto Marucchi’s N43-1.

Special prizes were also awarded and will be listed in Irises later. All images by Andi Rivarola unless otherwise noted.