'Peak Experience'

 

The Ackerman Essay Contest is an annual contest for AIS Youth Members.  This year's topic is "My most interesting or exciting iris experience".  The deadline is April 1st, 2016 with the winners announced at the AIS National Convention.

All the details are on page 10 of the Winter 2016 Irises Bulletin or you can see them here.   Entries can be emailed as attachments to draycott@qis.net or mailed to the address shown.

Learn more about the AIS Youth Members programs and activities on the AIS Youth website.

Iris tridenta

 

The annual SIGNA Seed Sale is underway.  You can see the list of seeds, with frequent updates as they sell out, on their website here.  Membership in SIGNA is required to purchase seeds and you can join online while purchasing your seeds.  Learn more about the seed sale, germination tips, and seeds from previous years that are still available.  That last page also has PDFs showing what was originally available in previous years.

One of the parts of the SIGNA website I recently discovered is the Iris Of The Month page (IOTM in the upper right menu).  So far there are 13 irises or irids with 2-3 paragraph descriptions, including what you may need to know about growing them, and a photo showing why you should grow them.  A number of them may be available in the seed sale, such as the I. tridenta shown which currently has two sources available.

IOTM came to light for me by joining the iris-species electronic round robin.  This is a public discussion group on Yahoo which anyone may join, although membership in SIGNA is encouraged.

'Show Me'

 

This year we have 79 approved AIS shows and counting.  That's how many have been approved (as of a couple of days ago) by Lois Rose.  You can see them sorted by date in this table.  That page will also point you to this map so you can see where shows are.  Right now the first ones are April 9th and the last June 19th.

Send your show schedules for approval to Lois Rose at least two months prior to your show date. Lois prefers to receive schedules via e-mail at lowy222@aol.com as it speeds up the process and saves everyone a little in postage.

Tetraploid Aril - 'Tadzhiki Eclipse'

 

The American Iris Society blog World of Irises turns five this month.  On March 9, 2011 Andi Rivarola published its first topic Think Spring.  After over 400 more postings it is still going strong!

World of Irises has all types of iris topics.  The most recent as I'm writing this (they add new ones frequently) is Tetraploid Arils, Anyone? by Tom Waters.

'Click Here'

 

Most of the photos illustrating the individual topics in News & Notes can now be clicked on and will take you to the iris shown in the Iris Encyclopedia.  This is a follow-up to adding captions to the photos so you can learn more about ones that catch your eye.  Note that you cannot click on the caption, only on the image itself.

 

This month's iris jigsaw puzzle features the Wister Medal winner 'Daughter Of Stars' by Donald Spoon.  Covered with blooms last summer.  You can choose the standard difficulty puzzle or the harder difficulty (twice as many pieces) or both.