2016 Society for Louisiana Irises Convention in Shreveport/Bossier City, Louisiana

By Ron Killingsworth

The annual Society for Louisiana Irises (SLI) convention will be held in Shreveport/Bossier City, Louisiana, from Wednesday, April 20th through Sunday, April 24th, 2016.  Make your reservations now!

The event will be at the Hilton Garden Inn at 2015 Old Minden Road, Bossier City, LA 71111.  Reservations can be made by calling (318) 759-1950.  You can also access their website at Hilton Garden Inn Bossier City, and be sure to use promotion code "SLI".

Attendees will have time to visit many beautiful sites in the Bossier City area. If you are interested, the SLI board meeting will take place on Wednesday from 6 PM to 9 PM in the hospitality suite.  

The garden tours will be on Thursday.  The first stop will be the Newton/Taylor garden located outside of Mooringsport, LA.  Mooringsport is about 15 miles north of Shreveport, which in the NW corner of the state of Louisiana.  The Newton/Taylor property was a family "camp" for many years before Ray Taylor and Eric Newton moved there in 1996.  Ray is a horticulturist and Eric is a landscape architect, so this is a gorgeous gem of a garden.  An acre of gardens includes collections of Japanese Maples, Camellia japonica, sassanquas, many varieties of roses, spring flowering shrubs and perennials including Louisiana irises. You will also see many unusual trees, including palms.  Vast bulb plantings that predate Ray and Eric's tenure bloom profusely in the spring.

The bus will then travel a few miles down the road to Plantation Point Nursery located on historic Caddo Lake.  This is an opportunity to see and photograph about 80,000 Louisiana irises grown in just about every conceivable method.  This is also the location of guest irises and seedlings from various hybridzers.  Bobbie and Stan have built a double gallery old plantation style home facing the lake.  There are several ponds with irises growing around the edges.  Louisiana irises can be found in dug beds, raised beds, among the other landscape plants, in marshes and on the edge of Caddo Lake.  Tours will be conducted of Plantation Gourmet Coffee, located on the grounds, and guests will be able to watch coffee being roasted and sample the results.

'Red Velvet Elvis' growing near the Koi pond where giant storks watch over the fish

'Fringed Gold' in the foreground with Bobbie and Stan's double gallery home in the background

Visitors will also be able to view recent additions such as Stan's Zen Garden, the Moss Steps waterfall, Bobbie's bog garden and Stan's tissue culture lab in "The Gator".

"Hardy" gladiolas and large poppies grow well with Louisiana irises!

Caddo Lake is natural, and many bald cypress trees grow in the lake.  It covers acres from NW Louisiana into NE Texas.

Louisiana irises growing on the edge of historic Caddo Lake with bald cypress trees in the background.

Louisiana irises abound at Plantation Point Nursery.

Thousands of Louisiana irises near the Crawfish Pond at Plantation Point Nursery with Caddo Lake in the background.

Massive planting of Louisiana irises with bald cypress tress and Caddo Lake in the background.

Hundreds of blooms greet visitors to Plantation Point Nursery in Mooringsport, LA.

Visitors will also find hundreds of Louisiana irises separated by color.  Lunch will be served on the patio of the "Big House".  Visitors will be treated to an authentic "Cajun" catered lunch and entertained by a Cajun music band.

On Friday, April 22nd, the bus will depart from the hotel for the R.W. Norton Art Gallery and Gardens in Shreveport, LA.  Established in 1947 by the R. W. Norton Foundation, the gallery and gardens are on 47 acres in south Shreveport.  Visitors will see flowing streams, an extensive xeriscaped experimental garden, a large ginger collection, a collection of camellias and over 60 varieties of maple trees.  Of course there is a large planting of Louisiana irises in one of the gardens.

R.W. Norton Art Gallery and Gardens offers plenty of "water features".

Of course you will find plenty of art and sculptures at the gallery.

Visitors will see many different types of flowers, trees and plantings.

Convention guests will then load up on the bus for a two hour trip through the farms and forest of central Louisiana as we head for our destination of The Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve near Saline, LA.  Briarwood, as it is mostly known by locals, is the birthplace and home of Caroline Dormon, a world renowned naturalist, author, artist and the first woman to be hired by the US Forestry Service.  

Enjoy the view at the big pond at Briarwood.

Visiting the home of Caroline Dormon is like traveling back in time. The Briarwood Nature Preserve has certainly accomplished its mission of keeping the preserve the way it was when she lived in this tranquil place.  Dr. Dormon collected many Louisiana irises from the wild in south Louisiana and moved them to her gardens at Briarwood.  One really wet spot called the "bog garden" contains many of the original plantings by Dr. Dormon.

Briarwood, as a nature preserve, has many places for water fowl.

 The "Reidhimer Pond" has recently undergone much work and is the home for wood ducks and other wildlife.

Mountain Laurel in many colors can be found along with hundreds of native azaleas.

Convention guests will be treated to state-wide famous BBQ in the guest center.  Many trails are available for walking and "people movers" are ready to transport those who are unable to walk the trails.  Wildflowers abound in their natural settings.

Louisiana irises growing in the bog garden at Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve.

The second "log cabin" built by Caroline Dormon at Briarwood houses many of her various collections.

There will be an American Iris Society approved iris show at the hotel on Saturday, April 23rd, consisting of beautiful Louisiana irises.  The schedule of events and a registration form can be downloaded from the website of the Society for Louisiana Irises.

Make your reservations now to attend this wonderful convention and have a chance to visit the Shreveport area as well as Bossier City and the surrounding area, known as "Louisiana's Other Side".

Children of 'Over and Over'- Pt 1 -Breeding Rebloom Iris zone 6 KY

by Betty Wilkerson

In the world of iris hybridizers we often hear "you can't do that!" Gather information, learn all you can about the possible results, and forge ahead.  Even though some say "it can't be done," don't let them deter you from following your iris dreams.  Two beautiful parents may not produce exactly what you visualized, but you will make progress, and most important, you will learn.  One of the most important things you will learn is the type of children your parents will produce.   Whatever your goal may be, stay focused, stay aware of other advancements, and keep making those crosses. You can't plant them if you don't cross them!

Over the past 10 years 'Over and Over' is the strongest rebloomer here in my zone 6 garden.  I've asked several people if they were working with it.  Most replied that the iris was too plain or old looking.  I thought I'd encourage some, maybe, by showing some of the children I'm getting by using 'Over and Over' as the pollen parent.

'Over and Over' (Innerst 2001) (pollen parent)

2130-01re (Wilkerson seedling) 

The pod parent of 2130-01Re is a seedling from 'Again and Again' X 'Echo Location.' 'Again and Again,' and has some plicata in the parentage, while 'Echo Location' is from two plicatas.  I did expect plicata seedlings, and there were three.  Two rebloomed, but didn't add anything new to the vast group of purple plicata rebloomers or my knowledge of their genetic makeup. There were several interesting things in pale yellow with lavender splashes and streaks. The seedling above (01Re) was saved because the maiden bloom was a deep plum colored self. The next year it bloomed in August, but the color was more pale. The following year it settled into the above pattern and color.

2612-01re (Wilkerson seedling)

This seedling, 2612-01Re, has a bit more modern look than 'Over and Over.' Since this was maiden bloom, it will be years before the final determinations are made. By then I plan, and hope, to have many more seedlings blooming from this cross and others like it. On first glance it appears the seedling has better form than either parent.  Not all will be good enough for the world to see, but things are definitely looking up.

This is not enough to make any big declarations, but I suspect there will be more to come.  I'd like to branch out into other colors, as this is not my favorite.  Stay tuned.  Next, I'll try "Over and Over" as the pod parent.

If you have questions or comments, please add them below.

There’s A Time-Warp in My Garden

By Vanessa Spady

My blog updates and my actual gardening progress are a bit out of step, so this post is about the fun we had planting our first set of rhizomes way back in October. I encourage you to read it, even though, since this part of the process was both fun to do and funny to read about.

Although I work, and have six dogs, eleven sheep and an orange cat (orange cat owners know what that means) I somehow manage to spend the bulk of my time gardening. I do this by choice, and on days like the day I am about to tell you all about, I garden instead of all the things I should be doing. (Note: if anyone can tell me the four-letter word equivalent for “should” I’ll use that instead.)

I have two forms of proof that I spent the bulk of that weekend in the garden. First, the inside of my house could convince you that border collies have opposable thumbs, and second, I was finally making visible progress on our iris project. While I dream of coming home to a beautifully clean home and a delicious, fresh-cooked meal, it turns out—to my surprise—that I don’t have a wife. Normally, my utterly darling husband steps up and makes a huge dent in the household chores, but he was out of town that weekend, and so I came home to the mess I’d made the day before, after a long day in the garden... (Honey, did I mention how much I appreciate you? Consider this a second reminder that you’re the best.)

So, now it’s 9:30 at night, I’m eating from-the-freezer stir-fry, and having just unloaded and re-loaded the dishwasher, I can now sit down and gush and crow and preen over my garden photos (none of which show the true measure of the accomplishment I feel!). I’m that delightful combination of excited and bushed, which is a nice way to wrap up the weekend. And I get to share my progress photos with you, which makes it much more fun. But first, of course, I have to tell you what got done!

From previous posts, know you that I’d cleared an area of the yard with a gentle slope for our great planting endeavor. I also procured (donated!) kiddie pools, tires, and pallets. Drip irrigation materials are on hand, and the rhizomes have all arrived (bought online, and from the San Fernando Valley Iris Society, who are just the loveliest people around). Six yards of very nice loamy, amended soil was delivered. So, no more obstacles, right?

P.S. Whomever came up with the expression “dirt cheap” has never had a dump-truck load of it delivered to their house.

“Hooray!” I exclaimed. “I can start planting now!”

But, that was premature. Because, you know, I’m not just going to stick them in the beds willy-nilly. There has to be a plan! A grand scheme! An over-arching concept! Right? I mean, I’m starting from bare dirt in about an acre of land. This is my big chance to design something amazing, and brilliant. Something that will end up in high-end gardening magazines, and be the first result when you search “gorgeous iris garden” and also be the ideal for all future iris lovers across the globe. I can’t just stick them in a kiddie pool and call it genius! There must be A Plan!

This, friends, is where the magic of gardening begins to ebb away, and the practical realities of being a Type-A overachiever with tendencies towards the grandiose starts to inhibit the actual gardening part of having a garden. I kid you not, there are probably a dozen steps between the dirt arriving, and the first iris rhizome getting planted in that dirt. I’ve had a few sips of wine, so it’s starting to be amusing to me...feel free to laugh along with me.

The good news (for me) is that in addition to being Type-A, I’m also very practical. I realized that I was not quite ready to design the most stunning garden of all time, and that just having a successful growing season was an excellent goal for this first planting year. Sufficiently self-chastened, I took some (more) advice from my sister, and created a visual catalog of all the iris I ordered, as well as all the named iris I already own. It turns out to be approximately 95 named iris. (The hundreds and hundreds of iris with missing names have earned their own post, so we’ll talk about those another time.) Luckily for me, I used to be an art director and graphic designer, and I very quickly assembled an excellent and clever (if I do say so myself) method of creating my very own iris catalog. Arrange-as-you-like printed envelopes:

This way, I can lay them out to create optimal color combinations without dragging my computer around the garden. Or worse, relying on my memory...

Any tags that come with the rhizome go into the envelope. I feel so clever. 
Of course, my goals for the garden are different from most commercial growers’ goals and requirements. I could have just planted them alphabetically! Or by type (“Tall beardeds on the left, folks, and intermediates on the right...”), but I created a slightly more challenging rubric of by-season and by complimentary-color combination. Which is to say, all the early bloomers are together, and then arranged in color combinations that enhance and support the beauty and uniqueness of each variety. Then the mid-season bloomers are together, and the late bloomers are together, etc, all arranged by a totally subjective and probably not-entirely-perfect color-enhancement and combination that, now that I’m typing it, sounds almost silly.

But, truly, a lot of thought went into which iris should be planted near which other iris. In my personal yard, I have what I call my yellow garden. I have combined many of my favorite yellow and yellow-ish plants in one area, and they all bloom their own variety of yellows, creating a really lovely and inviting spectacle. But I noticed when iris-shopping that often all the white iris (for example) look indistinguishable when they are planted together. There are subtle differences, of course, but the eye wearies of all white, or all blue, or all deep purple. And creating contrasts, and appealing color combinations really boosts the value of some of the more average or mundane blooms. A yellow bloom loses it’s zing next to a similar yellow bloom. But either of them in contrast with a vibrant purple (or reds, or pinks) become a vital part of a visually exciting tableau. Yeah, I just said that!

So, I printed out all the named iris stats onto envelopes, in full color. Then I separated them into bloom season (early, mid, late). And then began the fun of deciding which combinations of rhizomes should be created, and into which kind of bed (tires, raised beds, or kiddie pools) they should be planted. Now, I am going to toot my own horn again, and say that normally I am very very good at estimating how much time a task will take. And normally, I will brag about how that is one of my superpowers. Because of that, I will happily confess that I grossly, massively, and completely underestimated how long it would take me to create the layouts for the beds.

I figured it would take about an hour. It took closer to four. That was with Chris’ help. And that was after I had printed the envelopes, broken them into bloom-season groups, and made a preliminary layout. I was utterly unable to make the process faster, and I suddenly understood the appeal of planting them in alphabetical order.

When I woke up that morning at seven, I thought I would have everything planted by noon. Looking back, that is so naively adorable! I wrapped at sundown, because I still needed hardware and knew I wouldn’t get back before dark. Also, the dogs called and were threatening to see what they could whip up from leftovers and whatever was in the freezer... I had to call it a day. All the mid-season bloomers are planted in the raised beds, and the late-bloomers are the next to go in.

The great news is that I think we have a very attractive layout for each bed, and we will be able use all three types of beds for this test planting. I painted the tires for the early bloomers (because black tires in our climate will simply bake the roots of any rhizomes), so they finally got planted, too. Then I finished the drip system installation, and then... well, if you garden, you know there will always be something else. It will probably be weeding. I’m convinced the runoff will create beautiful green stripes of weeds in downhill rivulets from our beds... and then the gophers will really have something to think about!

Before that, though, here is a pictorial of how that first day commenced:

It started out hot, so we set up in the shade. You can see our magical raw materials: tires, raised beds, and lots of rhizomes. A thousand thanks to Chris for her help and delightful company. 

You don’t have to guess that it’s genius at work when you see we’re using the hood of the car to lay out our magic envelopes and create the masterful final designs (cough, cough).

I was pretty convinced we were going to need dozens of beds and walkways for the all the iris I ordered... and ha-ha, uh, no. This is pretty much the final configuration: early bloomers in the tires, midseason bloomers in the raised beds, and late bloomers in the kiddie pools. This all the room it takes to plant approximately 140 rhizomes. Yeah, I was surprised, too!

This was the trial layout before the tires were painted. The final layout is pretty much just like this preliminary version.

This is where the magic happened that first day. We laid out weed-blocking fabric, and then on top of that, we rolled out fine-grade wire mesh, to discourage the below-ground critters from coming up into the beds from underneath. I use the word “discourage” realizing they may come through anyhow, but at least we made it challenging!

You, too, can work for nine hours and have this to show for it! But, finally, rhizomes in the soil. Once the layout was in the database, we removed all the lovely tags, so the plants can just look natural. And relaxed. Like me.

There has been so much progress since these shots, so keep your eyes peeled for the next update. I can’t wait to share it all with you! And I keep my promises: here is a lovely photo of Doctor Who, a dynamite performer that I just love.

'Doctor Who' (George Sutton, R. 2009). Seedling U-740. TB, 37" (94 cm), Midseason to late bloom. Standards and style arms chinese yellow (RHS 20D); Falls beetroot purple (71A), chinese yellow and beetroot burst pattern; beards spanish orange; ruffled; slight sweet fragrance. 'Tropical Delight' X 'Snowed In'. Sutton 2010. Honorable Mention 2012.

Winter in the Garden: To trim leaves on PCIs or not?

Kathleen Sayce

A couple of years ago, I posted a comment about having used a dry sunny break in the weather to clip back iris leaves and clean up the garden. Several people reprimanded me for doing so, saying I was taking away these plants' capacity to photosynthesize in coming weeks until the new shoots came into full growth. With PCIs, sometimes that is true, and sometimes it is not. 

PCI "Clarice Richards' stays green all winter; brown leaves are tugged/clipped off in late winter or early spring. 

A storm called an Atmospheric River blew through this week; regionally these are called Pineapple Express storms, which bring warm air, high winds and heavy rain. About 11 inches fell in 3 days, ending with more than 5 inches of rain yesterday, a day so wet that salmon could just about swim in the air instead of the streams. Today the sun came out for the first time in nearly a week.

I took photos in the garden of the "photosynthesis-deprived plants" that I trimmed back that fall. My focus in past years for clipping was plants that had brown leaves. Many PCIs have mixed genetic heritages from most of the species in this group, and the degree of browning, if any, varies with those genes.  

Iris innominata has almost completely browned off by mid January. With snow, it will go completely dormant.  

A typical PCI clump in the winter garden, PCI 'Finger Pointing', has a few green shoots and weeds, and a lot of brown. 

Which groups stay the greenest, and can be left alone throughout the winter?  Iris douglasiana-derived hybrids.

Iris douglasiana selections and hybrids with considerable "Doug-blood" stay green all winter long. A few brown leaves are tugged off in late winter or early spring. 

Which groups go the brownest, so that by early winter, the only green leaves are the new shoots?  Joe Ghio's hybrids, and others from his mixed species pool of gene stock. Also, Iris innominata/I. thompsonii plants go brown by midwinter.  

Ghio hybrids typically brown off by early winter. The only green to be seen is weeds, and a few tiny new shoots.

Which groups go completely dormant and lose leaves?  Iris tenax and I. hartwegii. These species' leaves vanish by midwinter. 

Iris tenax vanishes underground by midwinter. Old leaves and winter cress plants will come out when I clean up the oak leaves and spruce cones in a few weeks. 

Spring is coming! Among all the brown leaves and debris, I saw several new shoots on most of my plants. A few have died; one that I though died last fall came back with several new shoots, and the rest have those small green fans we love to see in early spring. 

Now, if the weather stays dry for a few days, I can take my annual soil sample, and start pruning and tidying the garden beds. 

IRISES, the Bulletin of the AIS - Winter 2016 Edition

By Andi Rivarola

A warm welcome to those who are seeing the cover of yet another wonderful issue of IRISES, the Bulletin of The American Iris Society. The image below is a majestic view of the Kasperek's Zebra Gardens and iris fields in Utah, photographed by Melissa Hanson, Winner of the 2015 AIS Photography Contest, category "In a Field or Home Garden."

The Winter 2016 issue of the AIS Bulletin is now available for online viewing within the Emembers section of the AIS website. 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.

In this edition of IRISES, meet the new AIS President, Gary White on a beautifully detailed introductory article on pages 6 — 8. 

Learn why Fred Kerr, the creator of beautiful 'Queen's Circle,' won the 2015 AIS Hybridizer Medal, as announced on page 9.

Read about news from different iris organizations on Section Happenings by Jody Nolin, on page 12.  Don't miss news from the Japanese Iris Society, the Spuria Iris Society and the newest group to join the ranks, the Novelty Iris Society. 

Riley Probst reports on pages 15 and 16 about the 2015 AIS Tall Bearded Symposium, some wonderful statistics and lastly all the results, which are always interesting. 

The 2015 AIS Photo Contest Winners are recapped with gorgeous photographs, individual iris shots, irises in garden settings and irises and people. Don't miss them, they are on pages 29 — 33. 

Always inspiring, Remember Friends is a section that provides us with a glimpse on the life of those irisarians now gone, on pages 34 – 36. 

"A world renowned iris garden can be found in a bustling Northern New Jersey suburban community.  A stone’s throw from New York City, the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens located at 475 Upper Mountain Avenue, Upper Montclair, NJ is a repository for fifteen hundred plus varieties in all iris classification." ~ Mike Lockatell 

We hope you are attending the 2016 National Convention in Newark, NJ on May 23 —28. In case you have not seen the registration form online we're happy to share it on page 37. Some information on the convention, such as hotel and gardens are on page 38. And, a fantastic article in beautifully crafted words and photos by Mike Lockatell on what you will see at The Presby Memorial Iris Gardens, called "Presby Defies TIme," on pages 39 — 41. Also, Paul Gossett describes for us on page 42 beautiful Glenara Gardens in Upstate Central New York. If the word and photographs inspire you please join us in the Spring. 

"The incredible progress in U.S. iris breeding from the early Twentieth Century to the present comes alive in dazzling shapes, colors and patterns for young and old to enjoy each year."  ~ Presby Defies Time

Future convention dates, plus important AIS Board meeting times and locations are on page 55.

Lastly, a great picture from the AIS 2015 Photo Contest that deserves your attention. 

There's a lot more to see and read in this edition of IRISES, either in digital or print formats. If you are an AIS member know that you will receive the print edition soon (it's in the hands of the Post Office), or if you are an e-member, then that version is already available online as mentioned above. 

Happy gardening!

The Nitty Gritty on the Down and Dirty

By Vanessa Spady

When it comes to growing iris, soil conditions will often dictate the quality and quantity of your rhizomes and blooms. Sure, other things make a difference as well—I for one think that a zesty combination of spoiling and neglect make for happy plants, but that’s for another post. About the soil...

Our little Comedy of Iris garden is located in central California, in a primarily agricultural area, which means we have a nice amount of space to start with (about an acre of open, slightly sloped land), but also some significant challenges when it comes to the dreadful native soil. As I mentioned previously, our soil has two basic textures—pudding when it rains, and concrete the rest of the time.

Luckily, the nutrient level is very low! (Hooray?) So trucking in good soil and amendments was a necessity. I had six yards of a really lovely loam delivered, and much to my astonishment, I have used it all. But, only the best for my newly purchased rhizomes, because, let’s face it, I want to see massive glorious blooms in the Spring!

Additionally, our hard ground is home to several kinds of critters that love it when we water—it makes the soil soft for them to dig through, and gives them something tasty and nutritious to eat. I, personally, do not like killing critters when they are in their territory, but no amount of reasonable conversation makes ground squirrels understand that they should go around the foundations of your barn when tunneling across your property. And gophers don’t care that the plant they just destroyed was a gift from your recently deceased mother... it was moist and tasty! Basically, any time you add water to our land, you attract the very vermin you want nowhere near your precious plants. Ugh.

Furthermore, it gets very hot here, and it’s quite dry. Because this is basically an irrigated desert, it’s over 100 degrees for weeks at time—so, really hot. And managing the watering (which requires more care during a drought) is also critical. Iris don’t like to be too wet (or they rot), and managing their moisture and nutrients is crucial for them to propagate and increase. But creating moisture means attracting critters that will eat their roots, if not the entire rhizome... wheeee?

So, even after we had good soil brought in, we faced challenges in keeping critters out of the beds, and not losing our stock to heat or rot. Time for some creative solutions.

When I was gardening back in my suburban setting, the soil was decent, critters were few, and the water was a spigot away... it was easy. All I had to do was not over-water, and feed once or twice a year, and I had gorgeous, happy iris all the time. After moving here, with the more challenging conditions, I have tried a variety of solutions, after losing most of a bed of named iris to a ground squirrel.

When I first planted iris in our country soil, they did so-so. I didn’t initially know how to manage the soil moisture and feeding was completely different here. But once I got it figured out, I saw lots of green growth, and happily awaited my first blooms. But they never came, and the number of rhizomes seemed to dwindle. Finally, a bit of loose soil at the back of the bed exposed the dirty truth: a ground squirrel had tunneled into the bed, from under my barn. He had been snacking on my lovely iris from beneath, and I hadn’t noticed him for weeks. This is when it started to get a little Caddy Shack...

I took up the few remaining iris, and dug out the entire bed to a depth of about one foot. I molded tight-weave chicken wire into an open-shoe box shape, and laid it into the hole where the bed had been. I then re-filled the bed, and planted a new batch of rhizomes, confident I had outsmarted the little blighter. Joke was on me, though. Several weeks later, as I was watering, I noticed a bump of loose dirt near the outside edge of the bed, and that dirt was moving.

“Ha!” I thought triumphantly to myself. “He’s just run into my chicken wire basket, and can’t tunnel his way through it!” I quietly laid down the hose, and watched to see what would happen. The little guy pushed the dirt out of the tunnel and popped his head above ground. I could see him looking around, so I held perfectly still. He ducked in again for a moment, then came up again, and to my outrage and astonishment, he got out of his tunnel, walked over the lip of the chicken wire barrier, and began to tunnel down into the bed, right in front of me!

The hours spent digging out the bed, making the chicken wire barrier, placing it in so carefully, and replanting the whole bed was undone in one moment. I had been played by a ground squirrel!

All bets were off after that. I dug up the remaining rhizomes from that bed and moved them into pots, but I never liked that solution, nor did my plants. Then I struck on using pallets as beds, which did a good job once I got the soil combination right. I placed the pallets on rocky ground, where the squirrels don’t really dig, and then filled all the slats with a combination of native soil, amendments, and planting mix. This had the added advantage of making it simple to keep iris from one bed or section from creeping into another section. I kept only one kind of iris in each pallet, and there was never any confusion. If we ever have an emergency, I can pick up the entire pallet and move it, bed and all. 

We knew from the beginning of this project that just digging up a little bed in the ground and plunking down the rhizomes was not going to be the method for success. For this initial growing year, we are trying a combination of kiddie pools mounted to pallets, raised beds (with a base of weed blocking cloth and wire mesh), and tires (with the same wire and cloth base). We cleared the surface of the soil of the dried and dead native growth (code for “weeds”), and began to layout the different kinds of beds we had to see how they might best work with the kinds of iris we ordered.

This was our preliminary layout, after we cleared the weeds, but before we put down the weed blocking cloth and wire. Ok, and before we painted the tires.

We opted to use only one level of these raised beds for this first year to see how they would do.

To give the iris the best chances for success, separating them from the ground was the smart move.  Besides, I don’t want to encourage any further comparisons between myself and Carl from Caddy Shack. 

The project has expanded considerably since this first phase, so you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for updates and new photos. And you can bet there will be another load of the gorgeous loam heading our way sometime in the near future. Please, just don’t tell the gophers or ground squirrels.

And because I promised I would, here is a wonderful iris from Chris’ garden:

'Leave The Light On' ( Riley Probst, R. 2013) Seedling #U4WHXHM. IB, 22 (56 cm), Early, midseason and late bloom. Standards blue-purple with 1/16th gold edge; style arms bright yellow, vertical purple veining on style crests; falls blue-purple luminata pattern, bright yellow area with 1/4" white spear extending downward from beard; beards orange; pronounced sweet fragrance. 'Wild Hair' X 'High Master'. Fleur de Lis Garden 2013. Honorable Mention 2015.

The Evolution of Irises

by Tom Waters

Have you ever wondered where irises come from? Well, we all know they come in a box from Oregon via UPS. But I mean a little farther back than that. How did these particular plants evolve? How do they fit into the long history of life on Earth? How did they come to have so many shapes, colors, and sizes, and spread to so many different continents and climates? Iris is a wonderfully diverse genus, with between 200 and 300 species. And it is part of a larger iris family (which botanists call Iridaceae) that includes something like 2000 species, including other familiar garden plants like the crocus and gladiolus. Early botanists tried to deduce the family trees and family history of plants by noting their physical similarities and what clues could be gleaned from fossils. In this century, much has been learned from DNA studies, giving us a more complete picture of plant evolution. Peter Goldblatt of the Missouri Botanical Garden has taken a special interest in the Iris family, and Carol Wilson of Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden has studied the genus Iris itself in more detail. I’ve relied heavily on their work in putting together this post.

Origin of the Iris Family. Like many families of flowering plants, the iris family has its beginnings in the late Cretaceous period. At that time, the Earth’s climate was about 8C (15F) warmer than today, and there were no polar ice caps. Sea levels were high, and many areas were covered by shallow inland seas. It was a time when flowering plants were spreading throughout the world. They were diversifying and evolving rapidly, both encouraging and encouraged by the simultaneous evolution of bees and other insect pollinators. The iris family probably got its start about 82 million years ago, in what is now Antarctica.

Antarctica?

At that time, Antarctica wasn’t centered on the South Pole, but was nearer Africa, with some parts of it extending well north of the Antarctic Circle. It was still joined to Australia on the east. The climate was temperate, although cool, and the high latitude made for long summer days and long winter nights. It is thought that the strappy, vertical leaves (a distinguishing feature of the iris family) evolved to make maximum use of the sunlight, which would have been nearly horizontal much of the time. Two of the earliest branches of the iris family were isolated in Australia as it broke off from Antarctica, and five others developed in Madagascar and South Africa. (Madagascar and India were wedged between Antarctica and Africa in the southwest Indian Ocean at the time, making it possible for plants to migrate between the two continents.)

Around the time these different branches of the iris family were evolving away from one another and beginning to develop their own separate identities, the Earth experienced one of its great mass extinctions when a meteorite struck the Earth in what is now the Gulf of Mexico, 66 million years ago. Most people think of this event in connection with the extinction of the dinosaurs, but its effects were much more far-reaching than that. Many species of plants that depended on photosynthesis were driven to extinction by the dark envelope of dust that shrouded the Earth following the impact. 

Fortunately for the iris family, Antarctica, Australia, and South Africa—on the opposite side of the globe—were the best place to be. Although it is estimated that more than half of North America’s land plant species were lost in the extinction, few if any species were lost “down under,” although the numbers of individual plants plummeted.

With Antarctica moving south and the world growing colder, the future of the iris family now belonged to these plants that had colonized Africa and other warmer lands.

Two of the types of early irids (members of the iris family) in south Africa turned out to be very successful, spreading to other parts of the globe. These are also the branches of the family most familiar to gardeners today: iridoids and crocoids.

Iridoids and Crocoids. No, they are not rival alien factions from Dr. Who. The iridoids are members of the iris family related to irises, and the crocoids are members of the iris family related to crocuses. The iridoids include irises, as well as other familiar genera like Tigridia, Sisyrinchium, Moraea, and Dietes. A prominent distinguishing feature of the iridoids is their wide, arching, petal-like styles that cover the anthers and end in a crest. We can picture this emerging as an especially effective way to channel bees into the heart of the flower. The crocoids include crocuses of course, but also Romulea, Ixia, Tritonia, Freesia, Crocosmia, and Gladiolus. It’s hard to imagine a stylish modern garden without at least of few of this crew. Crocus, Romulea, and Gladiolus eventually found their way north into Eurasia from their south African origins, but it was the iridoids that eventually made it all the way to the Americas.

Iris. In the iridoid clan, the closest relatives to the irises themselves are the South African Moraea, Dietes, and related genera. Iris separated from these genera about 45 million years ago. The great sea that had divided Africa from Asia was gradually narrowing and vanishing, perhaps allowing the ancestors of the irises to find a new home in Eurasia. Later, the Sahara and Arabian deserts would prevent their return south.

Turkey seems to be the center from which the genus Iris has spread throughout the northern hemisphere. Many different types of irises are found in Turkey today, whereas most other regions have just a few local species.

For centuries, botanists had assumed that the most fundamental divisions of the genus could be seen in the different rootstocks: Junos with their bulbs and fleshy roots, xiphiums (which include the Dutch irises so popular with florists) with their tulip-like bulbs, the small reticulatas with their bulbs covered in netting, and of course those that grow from rhizomes. Some botanists even put these groups into different genera based on their rootstock. The rhizomatous branch of the genus was presumed to have then split into beardless, crested, and bearded sorts.

Iris unguicularis 'Lavender Moonbeams' (Tasco, 2014):
the newest version of the oldest iris?
photo: Superstition Iris Gardens

What has become clear recently is that these different rootstocks do not represent an early division of the genus into separate branches. Early irises were probably all beardless and all grew from rhizomes. These evolved into several different branches still having these basic characteristics, and then some of these branches gave rise to offshoots with deciduous foliage and bulbs as an adaptation to climates with very dry summers. So spuria irises are more closely related to Dutch irises than they are to Siberians, for example. Crested irises arose in more than one branch of the family tree, and are not a precursor to the development of beards. The earliest group to branch off from the others is represented today by Iris unguicularis and the closely related Iris lazica. If you want to have a mental picture of what the ancestor of all irises was like, Iris unguicularis is a good candidate.

Next, the family tree split into two branches, one of which spread mostly westward in the vicinity of the Mediterranean, while the other spread mainly northward and then east into northeast Asia and eventually North America. The Mediterranean branch produced the bearded, oncocyclus, and Regelia irises, but also gave rise to the Junos, and apparently the crested irises of east Asia, such as Iris japonica  and Iris wattii. These are actually more closely related to the Junos (which also often sport crests of various sorts) than to any other groups. Interestingly, one small branch of this group gave rise to both Iris dichotoma and Iris domestica, once thought to be so dissimilar that they were each placed in their own genus!

Meanwhile, the Asian branch of the genus led to the spurias, xiphiums, and reticulatas, plus most other beardless species. The migration of irises into North America was apparently not a single event, as there is no single branch of the iris family tree that has all the American irises and no Asian iris. The American crested irises, including Iris cristata, have the oldest lineage, but they do not seem closely related to the east Asian crested irises, as was once supposed. The crest feature developed independently in these two distantly related branches. A second venerable branch of irises in north America includes Iris missouriensis (the Rocky Mountain Iris), and the western species Iris tenuis. The Louisiana irises represent another early branch of the evolutionary tree. The other North American irises were presumably later arrivals, with close cousins in Asia. Iris virginica is related to the Siberian Irises and to Iris pseudacorus; this Asian-American grouping has a common ancestor with both the Pacific Coast group and also with the widespread Asian Iris lactea.  

Bearded Irises. The bearded irises grow around the Mediterranean, with some species ranging northward into central Europe. The tall bearded irises were the first to attract the attention of European nurserymen and plant breeders in recent centuries, and they are the most represented in our gardens today. There was probably an earlier division of bearded irises into dwarf species with a basic chromosome count of 8 (Iris attica, Iris pseudopumila, and Iris pumila, which apparently arose as a tetraploid hybrid of the first two) and other species (mostly taller and branched) with a basic chromosome count of 12. It is from this latter branch that our modern TBs, BBs, and MTBs are directly derived. The chart of bearded iris relationships here is not from DNA studies, but based on chromosome analyses, geographical considerations, and other suppositions.

In the big picture over long time scales, we think of evolution as a branching tree, where populations divide, become isolated, and go their separate ways to form new species. But if we look at the process in more detail, we see that species sometimes come about in other ways: as hybrids of earlier species, by polyploidy (doubling or otherwise increasing the number of chromosome sets), or by both these processes at once. The relationships among the bearded irises, for example, sometimes resemble a branching tree, but in some instances are more like a network, which species separating and then coming back together to make new species. Evolution is an intricate process.

Irises, being prized as garden flowers, have attracted the attention of human breeders. When looking at the difference between modern hybrid TBs and their wild predecessors, it is tempting to see a new, accelerated evolution now dominated by human intervention. But although the effects of human breeding efforts are dramatic, it remains to be seen what impact they will have in the long term. Our own genus Homo is perhaps 3 million years old; the genus Iris has been here about fifteen times as long already. The last two centuries of iris breeding, compared with the 45-million-year evolution of the genus, is a very tiny fraction indeed (the same as about half a second out of a day). The irises humans have created mostly depend on humans for their existence—you find them in gardens, and sometimes in old cemeteries, but they have yet to take over the Asian Steppes or the Amazon. Will there still be irises 5 million years from now? 20 million years from now? Will our present interest in them leave any traces that far in the future? 

Plate tectonic maps by C. R. Scotese, PALEOMAP Project (www.scotese.com). Used with permission.