Iris database

thanks to two very wonderful DGrs I now have a nice TB iris collection. Big enough, that I want to make a spreadsheet. What would you include? I have the following

Hybridizer
Date
TB, Std or Dwarf
Color
Rebloomer y/n
Fragrant y/n

anything else I need to add?

Thanks

I would include

Intermediate Bearded
Standard Dwarf Bearded
Miniature Dwarf Bearded

These are the most common ones I think.

Also, bloom time is great to know, as well as height.

I'm finding that I need to redesign some of my iris beds because I have tall ones in front of shorter ones.

Also, I like something going on in my beds all through the growing season, so I like to stagger the bloom times throughout the beds.

I would include a space on that spreadsheet to identify the plant location in your yard, and also a space for notes about the plant's performance.

Hey, when you get your spreadsheet done, you wanna do one for me? LOL Seriously, I'd love to see what your finished product looks like. I started one in excel, but never finished it.

It won't be fancy but I will glad to share, Miss Newest Uber, lol

Thanks. I'm still not sure what that Uber means. LOL I'm still just me.

My personal iris database includes cultivar name, classification/species, description, height, bloom period, hybridizer, yr of intro, garden location, yr of acquisition, source of acquisition, date of first bloom (each year), and designations for rebloomer, historic, fragrant, PBF, and spaceager. I can sort or search using any criteria I wish, so I can, for example, find all historic, reblooming TBs, then sort them by date of introduction. It's incredibly handy, but it only works if I put each piece of information in a separate field.

Laurie

Do either of you have a simplified way of designating color? I've found it hard to reduce it down too much. Especially when it's pale blue or dark blue, etc. I just use the method of the stands color comes first and after a / the fall color. But sometimes it's even more complicated than that. How fine do you cut it and how do you arrange it so that it can be sorted?

Tall is really important. And it's important to say how tall it gets in your garden although they can be shorter the first year or depending on conditions.

I use the AIS registration descriptions in my "description" field. That's the one field that can't be sorted in my database. Actually, I suppose I could sort it if I went through and created some sort of color code to place at the beginning of each description (like the color codes used in the early Check Lists). I don't think I'd ever bother with that, though. It'd probably be easier and more useful to add a separate field to include a thumbnail pic of each cv. That's something I've considered doing but just haven't had time to pursue yet.

Laurie

Thanks Laurie, Now I don't feel so badly that I haven't really been able to figure it out. I do download photos and have them organized by color but it's separate from my database. I guess I'll just use that.

Here's a photo of my spreadsheet. I keep a workbook format and each year I copy the workbook page and label it with the current year. Then as new ones comes in I add them with a special coloring. If they died before bloom season, I indicate that with a black box or the word died. Also if they didn't bloom, I color the box differently. Grayed boxes indicated I didn't have the plant that year.

I don't use the spread sheet for description I keep that in a word doc in alpha order. See next picture for that issue. I use the same color coding for each file so that I can glance to see which year has newest irises.

The registry. This information is AIS online database cut and paste.

Go have a look at

http://www.janett.net

Go to downloads on LH side and then the iris zip file.

Just an idea.
Inanda

Unfortunately, Janet's database isn't Mac-compatible.

I use Filemaker as the garden database on my Mac. I have name, plant type (SD, TB, etc), cultivar, year of intro, style (self, bicolor, bitone, etc), height, fragrant, rebloomer, a check box section with each month it blooms, where I bought it, how many I planted, the date I planted, color, garden status (in garden, removed/disappeared, potential plant-meaning one I have ordered but not planted, wishlist) and finally my rating (favorite, excellent, good, fair, poor).

I then have a comment box where all of my other data goes. it starts off with each year it has bloomed and which year I divided the irises. I solve my problem with sorting by color by putting a generic color in the color field and then putting the full description in the comment box. May not work for everyone but works for me. I also have two boxes where I can place pictures.

Below is an example of one page.

shoot! i also forgot to say that I have a Bloom Tendency section with a drop down of Early, Early-Mid, Mid, Mid-Late and Late-Season. This way I can sort by the season it is suppose to bloom in.

Very nifty, TD. I had an early version of FileMaker Pro on my old Mac, but I don't have it on the newer one. I do have Excel but haven't taken the time to learn how to use it yet. I assume it can do something similar to what you have created in FileMaker. I'm impressed.

All the databases/worksheets are fantastic. I have a more elaborate one for my DLs, I guess my iris one needs to be about the same.

About the colors, I agree with the ones that have said: use general color description, then elaborate w/ details on notes section of d/base.

With DLs, I have always meant to add whether a trade or purchase (how much/from whom). But now I have so many a lot of those facts I have forgotten or lost. Not too late for my Irises as I only have two sources so far.

thanks everybody for the input.

One of the things I like about doing the database in file maker is that I can really design the page to look how I want it. Then If I want to export to or Import from Excel I can. When I started the database in FM, I took an Excel spreadsheet I had started two years ago and imported just the fields I wanted. It was a pretty instant database. I have then been "tweaking" it all summer.

I have all of my plants in it now but a special button just for the iris. :-)