Anyone growing arilbred iris?

Emerald Fantasy is SOOOOOO beautiful!

Joan........isn't it though? I lost it last year during our monsson rains...................so I'll have to reorder it again this year. One of my favorites!!!

I was really impressed with Emerald Fantasy as well. I don't know too much about the weather in Oro Valley, AZ but it is hard to imagine that you had very heavy rains anywhere in Arizona. What amount of rain is hard for arilbreds? We get around 18 inches per year, and it gets pretty cold in the winter, sometimes below zero. I was in Turkey about a year ago and most of Anatolia seemed to be pretty much like Los Alamos, though not all of it is as high in altitude. Just curious. I know AB's grow very well in Albuquerque, 100 miles south of here. It is somewhat warmer and dryer and about 2000 ft. lower there. I hope they do well here.
I saw one a magnificent AB on an iris website today called Oyez. Do you two know it?

Oyez is very hardy since I know Laurie F grows it in MN
Margie "Tcha'Deetch" is a wonderful iris but I don't have it yet I got it as a guest and it is doing well so far.
PS you have dmail
:)
Anita

Pajaritomt,

Last year our monsoon rains were very heavy at times........causing several floods. We usually only receive about 12 inches of rain per year. But.........if the majority of that rain comes nearly all at once - - then it can have some pretty destructive consequences. I lost several arilbreds and a couple of TB's due to the flooding. :-(

I've read that arilbreds can usually take up to 20 inches a year without any problem, hhowever if one's rain comes all at once........then it can be problem. ;-)

My Oyez.......... is having a hard time growing and increasing for me. So it's being moved to another location this year. It may have been a weak/damaged rhizome to begin with, so I may just have to re-order it and see what happens.

~Margie

Anita,

I'll have to see where I can find that one. (Tcha' Deetch) Any ideas?
~Margie

It should be in the plant sale this year if not let me know I had a secret source this summer and might have a couple extra depending on how they do through the winter

I am pretty safe from flooding, living up here at 7300 ft. Our rain does come in large thunderstorms in the summer but there is never any standing water. The times I lost irises it was usually due to crowding and shade from other plants, not too much water.

Which plant sale are you referring to, Anita? Is it something for ASI ?

The Arilbred Society holds a sale once a year.....................keep your eye on this site:

http://www.arilsociety.org/arilsociety.pl?plantsale

Here are a few more Arilbreds.

Bagdad's Folly

Humohr

Things to Come

Kiosk

Walker Ross.......................This one is a reliable rebloomer for me!!

Zezura

Volunteer Fireman

I will be watching for the sale. I like Walker Ross and Zezura and Bagdad's Folly also look great to me. I am always willing to give a rebloomer a chance.

Here are a couple more arilbreds.............the last photos I have. I hope if someone else has Arilbred photos they will share them too.

Silent Tears similiar to a broken color iris - - where each flower that opens is different.

Hoopla - - last photo I have of arilbreds.

There are some lots of other arilbred photos here on the Aribred Society Website:
http://www.arilsociety.org/arilsociety.pl?photos+

.......and here - Superstition Iris not only has them, but sells them too.
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/119353760DQWzqw

Happy looking! :-)
~Margie

I had seen the arilbreds on the AIS website, but not the ones at Superstition. They both have a lot of lovely pictures and have done wonders for my mental health. It isn't snowing today and as I shovel off the front walk and driveway, I think about where to put all the lovelies I have been seeing on the Iris forum the last few weeks. I will definitely plan to plant AB's, BB's, MTBs, SDBs, and IB's. It will be nice to stage them so they can all be seen -- tall ones in back and going down in height. Of course I will mix in other flowers too, but I bet my neighbors don't have a clue there are so many tiny irises and will be delighted to see them.
Thanks to all of you for salvaging my mental health with Iris pictures. Don't feel you have to quit either. I keep becoming aware of more beauties and more types. The only problem I have will be accumlating enough soil to plant them all.

I guess I should wait on the tall bearded then :)
A

No. no, no! Don't wait on TB's. I love them, but knew next to nothing about the smaller versions. I know only some of the more classic TB's and the ones from some of the best known catalogs and web sites. I have learned here about the work of Keppel and Ghio and the pink ones, many of which I had never heard of.
Keep the pictures and info coming! Winter will last at least two months longer, here. And then it comes time to add to my collection!

I know I'm late to the party:) but I stumbled across Malevil Iris Gardens who have a great selection of Arilbred iris. I've been wanting some since I first laid eyes on Dardanus. I had no idea at the time that they were a different sort of iris and hadn't heard of Arilbreds. My wish list runneth over:lol:

Malevil has lovely Arilbreds and they know a lot about them. I now have my first Aril
Bred which came an extra from Willow River Iris Farm. I am so excited. I have a few others on order. I still have no experience in growing them. The first one has only been here a couple of weeks, but I am looking forward to a future full of Arilbreds, those desert beauties. But I wonder if they grow in North Carolina. If I were you I would check before ordering. I do understand your desire for them. They are very exotic and also very early.
I recommend you check with Margiempv and avmoran. They will have more info than I do about whether they grow in your neck of the woods.

Thank you for the advice. I sort of picked up by reading the posts here and there that they tend to prefer the west and southwest climates. Wish I had known about them when I was living in NM. I had such great TB iris growing there. The weather/seasons are so unpredictable here that it would probably be a gamble.

I will check with Margiempv and avmoran and get their advice. I'll probably end up back in NM in my later years since I do consider it home and then I can have my fill:lol:

We just had our local iris society sale today at the mall. We had hundreds of kinds of iris and lots of people there to buy them. Iris are very popular here because they are so easy to grow.
If you have a wet place you might try some LA Iris. They don't do so well here -- unless you bring them in in the winter.

I bought an enormous number of iris, including some arilbreds, at our local AIS sale. I have also ordered some from the Arilbred Society Sale, but those haven't arrived. I have started receiving the Arilbred Society of America journal and read an article by Pete McGrath in Albuquerque. He grows true arils and arilbreds. He talked about how they couldn't have any water at all in the summer and how he has a greenhouse over them to keep them from getting wet. Los Alamos gets about 6 in. more rainfall per year than Albuquerque and I put the AB's in the back yard in flower pots to see how they would do. So far, one is growing, Ahmid Bey, from Willow Bend Iris Farm. The rest are sitting there stunned. Some didn't have any green on them when I bought them. So, right now, I have:
Blue Arts
Stars Over Chicago
Stars Over LPaso
Gene's Little Secret
Ahmid Bey
Tauris
After the part about no summer rain, I put them all out in flower pots which I do not water. All came from Northern New Mexico gardens.
What I need is an instruction manual. Shear's wonderful book, The Gardener's Iris Book says that "specific cultural recomendations for Arilbreds are difficult to make. How they are treated depends largely on the proportions of Airl and Tall Bearded genes/ the more Aril 'blood present', the less tolerent they are likely to be of summer moisture."
Mine are all over the map in Aril content. They did all grow locally, but how? I have all of the arilbreds lined up in a "no water" area until I know more. What do the rest of you all do when you grow arilbreds? Do you do it in a greenhouse?

This message was edited Aug 18, 2007 7:18 PM

I have about fifty arilbreds that I have growing on a slope. They get rained on when it rains (of course, this year that means NO rain at all for the past month and a half). They have pretty much completely died back at the moment, but will begin growing again when we finally get some rain and cooler weather. I think the main thing is that any water drains off quickly.

Thanks. In New Mexico, that is not a problem. There is a slope to my yard and the soil is sandy. Keeping moisture is a lot bigger problem than getting rid of them. I would think that if they could handle Nashville Tennessee, they could handle New Mexico mountains.

I think I might give them a try now too. I've got a bed that drains beautifully. I think NeilTR and I might have similar climates so I feel better experimenting:)

Arils are so exotic looking, I just can't resist. If the ones I have now survive, I have to have an Oyez. It is just stunning.

I love Oyez, also. It was just starting to bloom this year when we had the late freeze and all the iris buds were killed.

dmac, you should do fine with arilbreds. There's a grower in Knoxville who specializes in them, so if they can live in Nashville's hot/humid summers and Knoxville's winters, you should be fine in NC

Neil