On the Road Again: The Vaughn Garden in Salem

By Bryce Williamson

After a too short visit to the Keppel garden—it would be possible to spend days there watching the bloom unfold, it was on the road again this time to head south of Salem to the garden of Kevin Vaughn.

Vaughn T-18-1
A tetraploid MTB voted  best seeding at the 2018 Region 14 Spring meeting.

When Kevin retired from the USDA job, he found 3 acres south of Salem. Just as Lynda Miller had provided a short cut to get to her garden, Kevin had told me a quicker way to get to his garden by skirting the east side of Salem before cutting over to his place on

River Road.

Kevin brings a wealth of scientific knowledge to irises and he as been a frequent and useful contributor to The World of Irises blog. While working for the USDA, he published over 160 scientific papers and recently he wrote Beardless Irises A Plant for Every Garden Situation and is now working on a book about median irises. His Louisiana irises have won awards and in 2019, his ‘Lemon Zest’ was one for the winners of the Mary Swords Deballion Medal for Louisiana irises.

He has been raising Siberians and out of the selections below, several will be introduced when stock allows.

His hybridizing interests in irises ranging from dwarfs through tall bearded and including in addition to the above Siberian seedlings, Louisianas and Spurias, and that interest is match also  by his interest in hybridizing other types of plants too. In his twenties, Kevin was a bright star of hosta breeding and the American Hosta Society have honored Kevin's contributions to the development of the genus Hosta by establishing in 2001 the Kevin Vaughn Award, which is given to the entered sport that is chosen as Best Overall by the AHS Judges.

With a new garden, Kevin has returned to hosta hybridizing something that he could not do during his years stationed in the South for USDA.

From his early teens, he was interested in breeding sempervivums and continues to do so. To find out more about his creations in that area, follow the this link. Daylilies and daffodils have experienced his touch; most recently he has seed from miniature gladiolus. A trip to this garden is always rewarding.

In the last two years, one of the most interested bearded irises in the yard is a Witt seedling—Kevin is growing the last of Jean Witt’s irises and the first of the selections, ‘Just A Dusting’, will be introduced by Aitken’s Salmon Creek in 2020. The most interesting diploid iris in the garden is the reddest beard iris any of us have seen. It will never be introduced since it is too big for the MTB class, but some of us are growing it in the hopes of using tetraploid pollen on it and get—if we are very lucky—a tetraploid from those crosses that should bring new a new source of red pigments into tall bearded irises.

To make sure he does not get stale in retirement, he is also an accomplished musician playing wind instruments, mainly oboe, in Salem Symphonic Winds, Salem Orchestra and Winds of the Willamette wind quintet.  From time to time he also plays for musicals and other groups.

In between checking out plants and great conversation that continued over dinner at Roberts Crossing Restaurant on River Road (why can't we have a high quality, reasonable priced eatery in my neighborhood like this?), Kevin and I made a dash to Larry Lauer's garden nearby garden and that will be the subject of my next 'On the Road Again' post.

Did We Give Up on the Recessive Amoenas too Early?

By Kevin Vaughn

Amoenas and variegatas have long been favorites of iris growers.  The early amoenas and variegatas were all derived from I. variegata and had many problems associated with that species, chiefly very veined hafts, and a pattern of striped falls rather than solid ones.  Breeders were persistent in their work, despite poor germination of crosses involving amoenas. Cultivars like the Dykes Medal winner dark purple amoena ‘Wabash’ and variegatas like ‘Mexico’ and ‘Pretender’ were very popular irises in their day and had covered up most of the problems in this breeding line.  In fact, ‘Wabash’ topped the AIS popularity poll for many years. Crosses of these recessive amoenas to yellow amoenas resulted in the unusual green amoena ‘Frosted Mint’ (one of my childhood favorites) and red amoena ‘Repartee’. (Editor's note: Kevin sent images of seedlings as examples and I do not have numbers for any of these photos, but they give an idea of what he is getting out of these lines.)

A revolution happened in the 50’s when Paul Cook found that I. reichenbachii had a dominant inhibitor of the TB anthocyanins in the standards only, resulting in amoenas, neglectas, and bicolor patterns only dreamed about in the past.  Paul’s ‘Whole Cloth’ won the Dykes Medal and most deservedly so as it was not only a beautiful iris but an important breeders’ iris as well. Almost all breeders made a few crosses with ‘Whole Cloth’ and generally with good results.  Moreover, these dominant amoenas had seed that germinated well and the flowers had none of the veined hafts so typical of the recessive amoenas of the past. People flocked to these amoenas, basically dropping the old recessive amoenas, although Jesse Wills, Catherine and Kenneth Smith and a few other brave souls kept the recessive amoenas going for a while. Catherine Smith’s ‘Bread and Wine’ may be the last of these, in the 1970’s.

In the MTBs, recessive amoenas and variegatas are alive and well!  In fact, if you breed MTBs you can’t help but getting them in spades.  As I looked through my patch of MTB seedlings this past spring, I saw many colors and patterns that I have not seen much or at all in the TBs.  The variety of variegatas is quite staggering, including those with patterning of colors on the falls, stitching on the standards, and several just in STRIPES.  In the opposite direction, my ‘Booyah’ and many of its seedlings had nearly solid falls with minimal haft marks. Amoenas followed the same patterns, with some striped variations in delicate stripes and some all-over versions as well as nearly solid colored falls.  When Rick Tasco, Roger Duncan and Keith Keppel stopped by one day, they were equally impressed in the variety of colors and patterns that were occurring in these recessive amoenas and variegatas.

When these recessive amoenas and variegatas are crossed into the plicatas and then recombined the variety of plicata patterns also increased with lots of strong bitoned and bicolor plicatas plus unusual distributions of the dots and spots.  I inherited a number of Jean Witt’s seedlings and she had explored these variegata-influenced plicatas a good bit. Crosses with them give even further variations. Some of these plicatas have the looks of things that Rick Ernst got out of his ‘Ring Around Rosie’ lines.  These tetraploid lines may have some variegata influence too.

Catherine Smith sent me a plant of ‘Repartee’ when I was a kid. I was impressed with how red the falls of that iris are and especially so when it bloomed in my garden in 1968!  Amazingly it still looks very red to me. ‘Repartee’ is a cross of the purple neglecta ‘Grosvenor’ with a yellow amoena and that overlay of strong purple with an inner yellow layer gives a very red effect.  Admittedly, ‘Repartee’ has some problems. The stalk is awful with buds toed in and the form of the flower is a bit “blobby”, although I have seen worse.

Fortunately yellow amoenas have improved a LOT since 1968 and I crossed several of them onto ‘Repartee’.  The F1 crosses of ‘Repartee’ X yellow amoenas gave almost all red amoenas/ pale variegatas. The stalks on these were much better than ‘Repartee’ and the forms began to approach the yellow amoenas.  Rather than sibbing these seedlings, I crossed them once again to yellow amoenas, hoping to obtain even better form. Those seedlings bloomed in 2018 and the improvements were noticeable. Much better forms and quite red falls were the norm.  Interestingly, several of these seedlings didn’t have solid falls but rather a splashed phenotype. Yellow amoenas have the dominant inhibitor I that suppresses anthocyanin production but the anthocyanins in amoenas are not fully inhibited by this gene.  It is possible that these anthocyanin-free sectors are due to some partial inhibition by I.  None of these is quite a finished product but they are interesting and with quite good color and very vigorous plants.  I’ll see ~50of the best of these red amoenas sib crossed (best form X best color) in the spring. I don’t expect any introductions from this line in the near future, but it’s been fun to see what the recessive amoenas can do.

This makes me wonder out loud whether we were wise in giving up on recessive amoenas too early despite their many problems.  Hopefully there will be a few more brave souls out there to use them in crosses.

IRISES: The Bulletin of the AIS - Fall 2019 Edition

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 Fall 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, The 2019 Dykes Medal Winner 'Bottle Rocket’ (Michael Sutton 2009, TB).

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.

Enjoy a full list of all the AIS Award for 2019, including beautiful 'Bottle Rocket,' above by Mike Sutton. Pages 10 - 17, then images of these glorious winners on pages 2-3, 17, and then 62 - 63.

The registration information for the 2020 Centennial National Convention to be held in Newark, New Jersey is on pages 32 - 33.

International news on pages 34 - 35. 

A wonderful article filled with tips by Australian hybridizer Barry Blyth called, Barry Blyth Reveals His Iris Photo Secrets, on pages 36 and 37.

A very interesting article on the genetics of diploids versus triploid irises called From Triploid Bridge to Diploid Pink by Dan Meckenstock on pages 40 - 45. 

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!

On the Road Again: The Keppel Garden

By Bryce Williamson

My second stop on the 2019 tour of iris gardens in Oregon and Washington was the garden of Keith Keppel in Salem. For many years, Keith Keppel’s garden in Stockton was a must visit destination. With his retirement from the US post office, Keith made the huge move to Salem, Oregon. While he was in California, it was easy to visit the garden several times during bloom season, but it is not so easy now with the added distance. The last few years I have made it up to Oregon—part of this On the Road Again saga—and I especially was interested in seeing his progress with plicatas. In addition to that work, Keith has spent a lot of time and energy creating endless variations of dark top irises.

Considering that Keith still does all his work, he remains spry and I cannot believe the energy he has to maintain his acreage--I looked at the work involved and was ready for a nap. 

The last two years, I have made a beeline to the plicatas to see what is new and different.

Kepple 12-015-A

Keppel 13-16-E

Brass Lamp brings the dark top patterning into a new color range.

'Brass Lamp'

And taking dark tops into a totally different color range:

Fashion Event 2020

Other seedlings of interest:

Keppel 13-51-A

Keppel 13-54-A

Remare L-22-B

Keppel 12-41-G

Named varieties that I liked:

'Clean Energy'

I did not expect to like 'Dancing on Ice' and it is subtle, but has lots of personality.

'Dancing on Ice'

This was the first time to see Thomas Johnson's iris with the amazing shoulder colors.

'Elite'

Oddly, there has been a lack of good neglectas of late and 'Major Issue' is bold and has huge, crowd pleasing flowers.

'Major Issue'

'Ocean Liner'

'Sugar High'

Barry Blyth's 'Flauntress'

After a too short visit to the Keppel garden, it was On the Road Again, again in a shortcut that Kevin Vaughn provided to the Vaughn and Lauer gardens south of Salem.

Iris in Indiana: E.B. and Mary Williamson

by Jean Richter

Edward Bruce Williamson was born in 1877 on Marion, Indiana. His father Lent A. Williamson and an uncle founded the Wells County Bank in Bluffton, Indiana in 1888, where his father was president until 1918. His mother was Dorothea Kellerman Williamson. Bruce, as he was known to family and friends, graduated from Ohio State University in 1897, and then worked as Assistant Curator of Insects (his academic specialty) at the Carnegie Museum. He also taught high school science, and published numerous scientific articles on dragonflies, upon which (in addition to damselflies) he was a world-class authority.

He married Anna Tribolet in 1902, and the following year began working in his father's bank, first as a cashier, and then succeeding his father as president in 1918. The Williamsons had three foster daughters, Dorothea, Jane, and Mary.

E.B. Williamson (as he was known professionally), started growing irises soon after he married and obtained his home and garden in Bluffton. He began corresponding with J.N. Gerard regarding hybridizing irises, who gave him the rather astonishing advice that so many people had been breeding tall bearded iris that their potential for improvement was probably exhausted! At Gerard's suggestion, Williamson began breeding aril irises, probably the most difficult type of iris to grow in Indiana. Despite the difficulty, he was able to produce successful crosses with Iris susiana and Iris korolkowii. After a number of years, Morrison abandoned his hybridizing program with arils and gave his entire collection to hybridizer B.Y. Morrison. Charles Gersdorff, for many years the American Iris Society registrar, was impressed with some of Williamson's korolkowii hybrids and introduced them. Unfortunately, none are known to be extant today.

Williamson had a very unorthodox hybridizing method, gathering pollen from multiple cultivars, mixing the pollen in small pillboxes, and then applying the pollen to the flowers of iris  he thought would be good parents. He was assisted in this by his daughters Mary and Jane, and he sometimes also hired local schoolchildren to assist if he had particularly large numbers of flowers to hybridize.

This method produced unique seedlings of bearded iris, but was not successful with beardless iris, as usually bees had pollinated the flowers before he could get to them. One instance in which he did not use mixed pollen in a cross was one between Louisiana iris species Iris fulva and what is now called Iris brevicaulis. The resulting variety 'Dorothea Williamson' (named after his mother) was one of the first Louisiana iris hybrids, and the first bred by an American. 'Dorothea Williamson' (or its close relations) now grows semi-wild in many areas of the U.S., including places where native Louisiana iris are not found (such as the eastern seaboard).

When E.B. Williamson began to sell iris in 1918, he established a nursery named Longfield Iris Farm (named after the name of his father's house in Bluffton). Two years later he entered into a partnership with hybridizer Paul Cook, who would later become one of the world's most distinguished hybridizers himself.

E.B. Williamson's fame as an iris hybridizer came not from aril or Louisiana iris, however, but from a tall bearded iris that radically changed course of iris development in the U.S. He made many crosses of the collected tall bearded iris 'Amas.' Of all these crosses only a few yielded pods, and only one contained a seed - the largest bearded iris seed he had ever seen. From this seed grew the plant he introduced as 'Lent A. Williamson' after his father in 1918. This iris was one of the first tetraploid iris (four sets of chromosones) produced in the U.S., and an important advancement (nearly all modern tall bearded iris are tetraploid). Many hybridizers used this iris to create their own tetraploid iris, leading to it being called the "great progenitor."

'Lent A. Williamson' (1918)

photo by Mary Hess

Williamson himself used 'Lent A. Williamson' to produce the important iris 'Dolly Madison,' which can be found in the background of a myriad of modern iris.

'Dolly Madison' (1927)

photo by Mary Hess

Below are some other excellent iris Williamson introduced during the 1920s.

'Cinnabar' (1928)

photo by Mary Hess

'Gay Hussar' (1925) originally listed as IB, now BB

photo by Mary Hess

'Rhea' (1928) pentaploid (5 sets of chromosones)!

photo by Mary Hess

While working at the bank and in his iris fields, Williamson continued to do research on dragonflies and damselflies. He named an astounding 14 new genera and 92 new dragonfly species. His contributions to entomology were recognized by having a new genus of dragonfly named Williamsonia in his honor. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1928, and his bank failed in early 1929 (just before the Great Crash). Since his university position required his presence in Michigan, his daughters Mary and Jane took over the operation of Longfield Iris Farm.

E.B. Williamson was elected to the AIS board of directors in 1926, and elected vice president in 1928, a position he held until his death in 1933 after a brief illness. Longfield Iris Farm continued to introduce iris after his death. One of the best of these later introductions is 'Amigo,' a handsome and vigorous iris.

'Amigo' (1933)

photo by Mary Hess

Mary Williamson was born in 1909, and died in Bluffton in 1987. In the course of managing Longfield Iris Farm after her father died, she named, registered, and introduced a fabulous white and purple iris that became a classic almost immediately: 'Wabash.' When it won the Dykes Medal in 1940 it was already one of the most popular iris in the U.S. and Canada, and is still a very popular iris today.

'Wabash' (1936)

photo by Mary Hess

The matter of the true originator of 'Wabash' (E.B. or Mary Williamson) had been a matter of some controversy over the years. However, when she wrote a history of Longfield Iris Farm, Mary named herself as its hybridizer, and when the British Iris Society awarded the Dykes Medal for 'Wabash,' it also identified her as the originator. Subsequent research has fairly unequivocally proved that Mary Williamson was the originator of 'Wabash,' and one the first women hybridizers to win the Dykes Medal.

Another of Mary's important achievements was the popularization of miniature tall bearded iris, or "table irises" as they were known at the time. While her father referred to these smaller, more delicate iris as "runts," Mary saw their potential. E.B. allowed only a few of these iris to be introduced during his lifetime, and Mary continued working with them and introduced a number of others in the 1930s and 1940s. Alice White was another major advocate of these iris, and led a campaign within the AIS to have them recognized as a distinct class. The exacting standards for this new class, now called miniature tall bearded iris, were written by White using measurements provided by Mary Williamson. The Williamson-White Medal is awarded by the AIS annually to the best miniature tall bearded iris. While the award was named for E.B Williamson and Alice White, it is perhaps more appropriate to honor Mary Williamson who did so much to popularize these iris rather than her father.

The Williamsons both had a profound effect on the development of iris in the U.S., from E.B. Williamson's breakthroughs with Louisiana iris and tall bearded iris, to Mary's Dykes Medal winner and her popularization of miniature tall bearded iris.

I am greatly indebted to the material found in Clarence Mahan's wonderful book Classic Irises and the Men and Women Who Created Them, as well as to Mary Hess for the use of her beautiful photographs.

Dykes Medals in New Zealand

By Maggie Asplet

The New Zealand Dykes Medal can be awarded every second year by the British Iris Society on the recommendation of the New Zealand Iris Society.

This medal is awarded also in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia.  The Australasian Dykes Medal was first instituted in 1985 and allowed a medal to be awarded to New Zealand and Australian irises in successive years.  However the process of sending iris out of the country to be tested in Australia proved unworkable and as a result in 1992 the New Zealand Dykes Trial Garden system was set up.

 Frances Love holding her Dykes Medal

Picture thanks to Piki Carroll

Frances Love won the first New Zealand Dykes Medal in 1995 for the Siberian iris ‘Emma Ripeka’.  This iris is registered as 91 cm (36”) in height, with a mid-season bloom (October/November in NZ).  Standards are medium blue, style arms are sky blue and the falls are dark blue.  This is a seedling crossed with self.

It would take another 10 years before another Dykes Medal was awarded in New Zealand.

Iris 'Salute D'Amour'

Shirley Spicer first registered her iris “Salute D’Amour”, a Tall Bearded iris in 2001, and was awarded the New Zealand Dykes Medal in 2005.

This iris is described as being 84 cm (33’) in height and late season flowering (November in NZ).  The standards are light pink blush, styles arms soft coral pink and the falls are warm pink blush with soft white haft marking and a coral beard. This iris has a sweet fragrance.  Parentage is ‘Elysian Fields’ X ‘Flirtation Waltz’.

Seven years later the third Dykes Medal was awarded.

Iris 'Norma of Irwell'

Having registered his first iris in 1969, Ron Busch would have to wait until 2012 to be awarded his Dykes Medal for ‘Norma of Irwell’.

‘Norma of Irwell’ is a Tall Bearded iris first registered in 2008 and named after his wife.  It is described as being 86 cm (34”) in height, with late midseason flowering (Late October/early November).  The standards and style arms are deep purple and the falls deep violet-purple with white around the beard.  Beards are bronze tipped violet.

Finally, our fourth Dykes Medal was awarded just two years later in 2014.

Alison Nicoll holding a stem of Iris 'Atavus'

‘Atavus’ a Tall Bearded Iris bred by our very own President, Alison Nicoll, was awarded the Dykes Medal, at our Convention in Hamilton (2014).

Originally registered in 2006, ‘Atavus’ is 72 cm (28”) tall, a mid season flowering iris.  It is cream flushed lilac in the centre, style arms creams and lilac, the falls are strongly washed violet, has tan hafts and border; the beard is red.  This iris is flared with slight spicy fragrance.  Parentage is ‘Prince George’ X ‘Outrageous Fortune’.

How does our Dykes Medal System work in New Zealand?

Eligibility - Any New Zealand bred iris is to be eligible for testing.  Each enter is allocated a number, which is it knows as for the duration of the trial period.

Iris which have won the Begg Shield, McLachlan Trophy or the Lucy Delany Memorial Award should be sent to the Sykes Test Garden.

Entry – To enter plants for assessment send 1 preferably 2 rhizomes to each Dykes Test Garden.  No more than three different iris per breeder will be permitted in one cycle.

Judging – In the first year the iris will be allowed to settle and will not be judged.  In the following two seasons they will be judged by a panel of three judges which must include a senior judge, co-opted by the Director of each garden.  This may require several visits over the bloom season.

A copy of the judging papers is sent by each Test Garden Director at the end of each season’s judging to the Test Garden Co-ordinator for collating.  The average of the two seasons judging of each trail plant will be used to determine its performance in each of the Test Gardens.  The co-ordinator will then average the best two results from the three test gardens to determine the final number of points of each plant.

Growers will be given the results of their iris from the first year of judging on application to the co-ordinator.  Points are not published.

An iris which receives 70 points is eligible for an Honourable Mention; 75 points for an Award of Merit.

A Dykes Medal winner should receive 80 points or more.