The first iris bloom is six days early

Snow Fiddler

Prince Lohengrin TB historic all except Blue Eyed Blond are maiden blooms

I love DELIRIUM. To bad it's not a SDB, I really like the short ones. They are so easy to take care of.

Delirium isn't all that tall, not like an SDB but not difficult like a TB.

Well a slug ate right through the stalk of this one and so I brought it inside and plopped it in the remaining Mother's Day bouquet that my brother sent us. It bloomed today, maiden bloom.

Daughter Of The Stars TB luminata

Indian Footprint SDB maiden bloom

Burnt Toffee TB

Lunar Frost today after two days rain it was nice to see the sun for a short time today.

Raspberry Blush IB

Raspberry TB noid

Lent A Williamson TB

Triple Play TB another slug or snail cut throught the stalk and I brought into the house.

Sans Souci MTB from Laurie maiden bloom

This message was edited May 31, 2009 6:00 PM

Wabash TB

Not English Cottage TB maiden bloom.

Got any ideas what it might be?

Prince Lohengrin TB not wet.

Love Lunar Frost! So bright.

They ARE ALL beautiful, but HOW do you know WHEN they will bloom? Mine just bloom when they are ready and just have stopped. I even have one that is so dark purple it's almost black and it bloomed one year with snow on the ground in january. I gave a baby shower for my daughter and picked blooms for the table. And they smell so sweet. I never know when they will bloom, how do you? Mekos

The bloom in Jan. is unusual. I keep a yearly bloom log in a notebook; I can compare the bloom time over the years that way. Of course some plants, especially seedlings leave the garden each yr.

I never thought to do that. Until I joined here didn't know the name of hardly anything, now just overwhelmed with names.

I think we use our best guess at the Maine Iris Society in telling when to put a date on the show, a certain day like Saturday say in a certain week usually produces enough bloom for a show in my area. Course the irises have the final say and do not always bloom every year at the same time so in the Median Iris Show if you have any type blooming they say bring it in for the show. That is the show I keep missing on being able to attend but the TB show I go to and take photos.

For my personal garden I take photos, record the month, day, year on my digital photo and so I can at a glance tell when it bloomed on a certain year in Maine. My photo would be labeled lunar frost 5J15312009. I would see it was May 31, 2009 and the J is me taking the photo, not my husband or other family member. The 1 after the J tells me it is the 1st photo for I may have taken six shots of the same thing to get one good photo. I do keep a journal in a new program that handles more than just irises but daylilies and hosta as well. Because it is new, I do not have all my data entered in it yet but am getting to update that as I do stuff in the garden.

There are lists of predicted bloom dates that sometimes match or not given when you buy the iris from certain places like on the tag or on the bag written by someone who feel the info is important. When someone does that at the rhizome sale it helps greatly in picking an iris or in identifying it.

American Iris Society keeps lists for registering and introductions.
Maine Iris Society must have something like that for judging shows.
The Historical Iris Preservation Society uses the AIS lists that are available to them as a basic guidline to identify irises but some descriptions were not carefully made at time of registering in the earlier irises so they refer to catalogs and persons who actually have seen the real thing.

I submit the source and the photo and they tell me if it is correct or not. Had my China Dragon and Debbie Rairdon rejected this past year so I call them my not Debbie Rairdon and not China Dragon until I find out what they really are. Others have the same thing done when they submit photos to the ID Gallery. We have an ID Chairperson that decides this stuff after viewing what we submit and it helps him greatly to know the source first.

We had some people die, get sick or just not know their irises were imposters donating irises in earlier HIPS sales and we have been trying to sort the mess out. We are tagging them now with source of donation as part of the donating process so if one is an imposter the donator can be contacted and can then label the iris correctly. Before we had no way of knowing who donated what but that is changing.

Another reason to state the source is that something say from Superstion Iris Gardens might look very different in color due to temp, soil and yet be from the same source and if the Id Chairperson knows the source, he can say that it is the proper iris more easily than if he does not know the source.

In Maine the colors tend to be darker here and if something looks like it has no no purple based foliage in a warmer state, say Maryland, it would show up strongly here in a colder state, the faint pbf would show here in Maine. Might be the real deal but a debate of pbf could happen abut it being the real deal without knowing it came from Superstion, it would be the real deal because Superstition works closely with the ID Chairman. That is just one HIPS approved place that sells the proper identified irises. There are quite a few others, some very carefully recording even the noids like Mary Hess of Bluebird Haven and Argyle Acres and Iris City are other sources usually correct in identifications. Sometimes a mistake happens and when it happens they try to fix it.

We have fun trying to identify and preserve the irises already registered but we never feel threatened if one is rejected as an imposter. I do however ask why it is rejected so I can better know what the real one is supposed to look like. Also soon as it is rejected I try to tell the persons I trade with or given some to as soon as possible so they can know it is not the real deal.
Julianna


This message was edited Jun 1, 2009 1:36 AM

I have apicture of what is suppose to be a Japanese Water Iris, but NO one has ever seen one or can tell me where to find it. Some say it may have been doctored, but if it exists, I'd love to know it,s name and who might have one. Can you look and see?

There is I.lavigata which would be 'water iris'. And there are Japanese irises which yours looks like. They can grow in moist soil & should not be left in water over the winter. I have not seen a JI that color.

So interesting Julianna. It would be something to see the bloom dates charted over the years. maybe I'll start that this year with mine.

How are they determined to be rejections?

The red ones name is SHOGUN it's a Japanese Water Iris. OH my goodness. I just found one. Thanks everyone.

This message was edited Jun 1, 2009 4:59 PM

You mean my not Debbie Rairdon and not China Dragon which do need to come off Dave's Garden entries now I think of it. Need to know what to do to remove an entry from plant files if determined wrong flower.

Well my not Debbie Rairdon might be Truly Yours. One is ten years older than the other and so one is less frilly. Mine is more frilly so it is younger than Debbie Rairdon was a reason given. Both are green based fans. No purple shows up in the fans for either one. I am growing a Truly Yours from Superstition to compare before we go and put the pic on HIPS photo ID. If there are differences than I can not say it is Truly Yours but that for now is the guess of the ID Chairperson.

Not China Dragon was not quite what he saw, again mine seem more frilly, has a whitish area and mine was not the only one rejected. Seems to be at least two versions being sold as china Dragon and the other photo rejected was in Washington state, not just in Maine. Perhaps Argyle Acres had the real thing but they are not offering it this year.

Iris City seems to have the real Debbie Rairdon. Will have to check them out later.

For today's blooming I had fun looking at the maiden bloom of Color Carnival TB

Here is another shot of historic Color Carnival TB by Caroline DeForest Reg Intro 1949 and this has heavy purple based foliage.

This message was edited Jun 2, 2009 1:21 AM

Arilbred Honey Not Tonight by Sharon McAllister 2007 27" M OGB bloomed today for the second year in a row, made more than one bloom stalk.

This message was edited Jun 2, 2009 1:57 AM

This arilbred got eaten by something, Syrian Jewel

Batik BB maiden bloom.

Susa IB by Sass iris dated about 1934. As you can see the older the iris, less frilly.

Color Carnival is lovely. I am starting to appreciate the beauty of the older Iris more all the time.

Susan

Princess Beatrice is a TB by Barr 1898 It is a pallida but has more flare on the falls and tends to change color, shade wise. Blooms are not all one shade fading to light. The blooms opening are fun to watch for they are not all the same shade lavender when they open or exactly the same form. I like mine near Superstition which is really dark and sets it off.

I am growing other pallidas but Gertrude is not going to bloom this year, I Pallida will bloom for the first time this year so I will compare them later. Both princess Beatrice and I Pallida came from Arglye Acres. Gertrude comes from Superstition.

Princess Beatrice after a thunderstorm. Not at it's best.

Pink Kitten IB V Wood around 1976 or 1977 maiden bloom one I got from Laurie.

This noid is all across the country and goes back at least to the 1800's but noone knows it's name if it ever had one.

Picadilly Circus TB is very recent, by Sutton 2003

The last one is a versicolor called Candystriper that I got from Laurie. The versicolor's Candystriper and Between the Lines seem very hardy in my area. They are very much like siberians in hardiness. They survived when my enstata's died from the ice storm.

Versicolors are NA native plants, after all. they should be hardy.

I guess what I was wondering is if you had to send the plant in and have it grown to be identified, or if a photo acceptable. I think you said that a photo was rejected, so that makes sense I guess.

If you are a HIPS member there is a Identification of noids section and you send the photo of good quality or it will do no good, to the forum and they will try to identify it. Sometimes it is real easy if the noid is something everyone has seen like Lent A Williamson is the most popular TB across the country to be finding as a noid.

Crimson King is another popular older iris found almost everywhere except here in Maine it seems too tender to just grow wild.

Now there are some very hard to tell apart and need a rhizome grown against it to be sure it is the real thing.

Eleanor Roosevelt and Black Magic are very close in looks.

Some may be identical in flower form and color so the only real difference is purple in the leaves or no purple in the leaves. These need to be part of the description when identifying and Mary Hess of Bluebird Haven does try to state GBF or PBF when she lists her irises which helps with the identifying process.

You can say that one is not the real thing, because it has PBF. Snowflurry is having an imposter going round with PBF but Snowflurry which is white has no PBF, it is a GBF, green based fan, no purple at all in it any time of the year.

The purple in the leaves of an iris labeled having PBF can show up before bloom and as the flower happens, fades away in some plants, others it stays all the time like in the irises Elsa Sass or Blue Shimmer.

Purples and whites may be hard to id only with a photo so again a rhizome will need a guess rhizome grown against it to try to id it. If they match, you know what the noid is. If they do not, you guess again and grown another against it and make a list of what it is not and a list of what it might be. Strike off the ones you know it does not match before buying a test rhizome again to grow against it. This can take years and so if it is a pretty historic noid, we label it as a noid and keep the same name to it if we share it until we find out what it really is.

We usually spot an imposter in our Noid Identification Forum area and tell the person owning it to label it differently from the iris id they thought it was or suggest a rhizome to grow against it. I was told in Feb of this year to try Truly Yours to grow against my not Debbie Rairdon to see if they match. Hence my not Debbie Rairdon photo might appear as Truly Yours in the future in the HIPS Photo Gallery should they match.

Should I donate it in a sale it would be labeled as a noid not Debbie Rairdon or the proper thing when we discover what it is because it is a historic of some kind. It seems to be ten years younger than Debbie Rairdon in characteristics so we do not want to sell it as Debbie Rairdon. We do not want a picture of it in the Photo Id Gallery as Debbie Rairdon if it is not the right iris, for others are trying to id their irises.

Now in the noid identifying section of the communications forum for HIPS members is where we hold our debates over what we think each plant is. We show the photo and someone says it is the right iris or not the right iris as we have labeled it. We even discussed the mess up that happened in the HIPS iris sale a couple of years back where we had bought one thing like my Snowflurry and it was something else entirely. When a person donates due to illness or death the family or friends may do the digging and labeling for them and may not know what is what. We have a good time sorting out the mess and are trying to make a better system to sell the iris you intended to buy at the sale. This section if you are not a member, you can not see the pictures that we are talking about. You can see the discussions without the pictures that members are actually seeing.

That was the way it was before any upgrading to the HIPS website happened. What it is like now I have not investigated for I am still not well yet from the flu. Getting better but for a week I dragged myself out and took photos and labeled and went back to bed when I could. Not really been able to garden or weed this week.

Oh yes, like the ID area, the photos in the HIP Gallery give a few for non members to see what it is like but there are many more added that only members get to see.

I tried to bring a few photos of historics to Dave's Garden to help non members a bit in the process of identifying their noids, my pics I can share. What others donate to HIPS Photo Gallery may not be shared without their permission. I noticed quite a few other HIPS members have placed many of their photos in Dave's Garden's Plant Files to help out.

I have only one plant that bloomed today that is new. It is an historic Dykes Medal winner of 1962 called Whole Cloth by Cook, 1958) 30",M,White and medium blue amoena with nearly white beard.

Mine comes from Superstition Iris Gardens so I know it is the real thing even so that description mentions no yellow which is in the beard. The newer descriptions of modern irises try to state the beard color more accurately than they did in the past. A debate could happen around this iris over the beard not matching the description if the ID Chairman did not know Whole Cloth came from Superstion.

Here is a photo of iris looking like it has white beard but it was the angle of the photo.




This message was edited Jun 2, 2009 6:18 PM