'Miss Portland'

The next deadline for registration is April 18th; after which the cost of registration rises.  Details can be found here.

Note to hybridizers:  If a guest seedling has been named, you are responsible for notifying the Convention Chair so the labels can be changed.  This is important because seedings and named irises are eligible for different awards.  You can email John Ludi kludi@juno.com the Convention Chair.

An award to be presented during the Convention is the Bennett C. Jones Median Hybridizing Award which the Median Iris Society presents (4:30 May 23) as part of its program.  Learn more about the award and previous winners here.  See the schedule for the location for this and other events.

'Popular Acclaim'

 

One way of showing off irises is creating a gallery of photos.  We have done this on the Iris Encyclopedia for a number of topics.  One recent example  included all the 2015 Dykes Medal candidates.  Another featured the 2013 and 2012 Spuria Popularity Polls.

The Popularity Polls are a great way of featuring particular classes of irises.  The Society for Japanese Irises has their Popularity Polls from 2007 through 2013 detailed on their website.  And now you can see what the 2013 poll represents here - 15 great Japanese irises!  Learn more about Japanese irises on their website, see their photos, and join SJI . 

There are many more Popularity Polls already available on the Iris Encyclopedia.  Use this search for popularity to find them.  Note that not all the polls will have photos yet.  The earliest one (so far) is a 1917 poll with photos.  For a really mixed poll, check out this one from Region 1, discussed previously, and now with photos.

Does your Section, Region, or Club have Popularity Polls you would like to show off?  We can show you how to make the pages, help you do it, or maybe even do it for you.  I'd like to see all the classes represented with polls!  Let me know how we can help - wrmesser@gmail.com will reach me.

'Air Show'

 

This year's iris shows begin early in April.  You can find the list of approved shows in the Iris Encyclopedia here.  It is organized by date of the show.

Are there other ways it would be useful to have the list organized?  Please let us know.

'New Vista'

A new website and a new address.  So update your bookmarks!   The new address to use is www.spuriairissociety.org .  And the old address no longer works.

The new site is a work in progress with topics being moved from the old one.  It already has some great photos and information on Spuria culture.

You can also find the Spuria Iris Society on their Facebook page.  Another great site to see Spuria photos!

'New Orleans Lady'

 

It's not too soon to be thinking about the 2018 AIS National Convention and Society for Louisiana Irises Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Especially if you are a hybridizer of Louisiana and related irises.  The first step is their call for guest Louisiana irises and guest inter-species hybrids involving Louisiana irises. 

Complete details are available here.  That page points to this PDF of the request.  You can go directly to the PDF as well.  So mark your calendars to attend in April 2018!

'Loreley'

 

To the mailbox of HIPS members very soon.  ROOTS is sent to members of the Historical Iris Preservation Society twice a year.    Editor Nancy McDonald has shared the Table of Contents with us to let you know what is coming or what you are missing.  You can see it here (PDF).  And Nancy has also provided an expanded description of each topic.  See the descriptions here.

Most of the topics caught my eye.  However I'll just mention a couple here.  One is the Guardian Gardens Program for rescuing the rarest of the rare irises, which has already had some successes.  One Way to Hold an Iris Sale is a topic that can be of interest for all irisarians.  Which leads to the HIPS Rhizome Sale - open to both members and non-members!  Watch for the details!

To learn more about HIPS visit their website.  You can learn more about membership and join online here.

'Butterfly Convention'

One of the highlights of National Conventions is attending the Board of Directors meetings; both the AIS board and Section's boards meet.  Members are encouraged to attend; to learn what is being considered and to provide your input.  The Convention schedule lists the meetings and their locations.

Part of the preparation for these meetings is preparing the committee reports.  For example, News & Notes is part of the Public Relations and Marketing Committee so its report makes up part of the PR and Marketing report.  I thought showing you the News & Notes report, at least as it now stands, might be useful.  It is a work in progress so please give me your comments.  You can leave them using the comment box on that page or email wrmesser@gmail.com with comments and suggestions.  There are working links in it.

Maybe I can even prevail on some of you to write parts of it for me :) - it is the Iris Wiki after all.  Or insert a few testimonials.  I did receive one recently that I love; speaking of  News & Notes they said "This site is an iris smorgasbord on steroids."  Which we may have to use as our tagline.

To learn more about previous AIS Board meetings, this page leads to the minutes from 2005 on.

'Speaking Freely'

 

Literally.  You can listen to a podcast about "table iris" (meaning MTBs, a description I was not aware of before) where Kelly Norris is interviewed.

Debra Prinzing speaks with him in her Slow Flowers podcast.  You can read about the interview and listen to or download the podcast here.

The Slow Flowers podcast is a weekly podcast - episode 187 was this weeks number.  Debra covers a variety of topics dealing with flowers, designing with flowers, all kinds of cut flowers.  You can find all the episodes starting with the most recent ones.

The other iris intensive episode was recorded at Schreiners Iris Gardens.  The emphasis is on floral design at a workshop by the Little Flower School of Brooklyn presented at Schreiners.  Here is that episode.

'Share The Spirit'

 

Last time we pointed you to a copy of News & Notes to share with everyone.  And mentioned the upcoming World of Irises posting that would also serve as an introduction.  That posting is now available and you can see it here.  It gives a general description of News & Notes, its background, and some of the things you can do to use it and help us with it.

The posting points to the working copy which we encourage you to share widely.  Please let us know your experiences with using it and how else we might help you.

Another thing for you to share are all the great World of Irises  topics.  No matter what the iris topic, you are likely to find it in the World of Irises - along with great photos of the irises.  This began with its first posting Think Spring back in March 2011.  Happy 4th Birthday to World of Irises!  Explore and share it with your friends.

 

Another chance to enjoy irises by working a jigsaw puzzle.  Again a collage of irises to solve.  Here is the Standard difficulty puzzle or you can go for the Harder difficulty with twice the pieces.

And while I have your attention, thank you for requesting the names of the irises we use to illustrate each topic.  It's because of your questions that I found out a caption could be added to them.  Would you also like to be able to click on the photos to go to the Iris Encyclopedia entry for that iris?  Please give me your comments and suggestions.