Section Happenings
ARIL SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL
Howie Dash
The Aril Society International, in conjunction with the
Mesilla Valley Iris Society, will hold an Ariltrek in Las Cruces,
NM, April 6–7, 2018.
Friday, April 6
- Panel discussion
- Growing arilbred iris
Saturday, April 7
- Tour four gardens
- Optional judges’ training in garden
- Evening banquet with featured speaker Pete
McGrath, arilbred hybridizer
The Ariltrek will be held at the Historic Hotel Encanto
de Las Cruces. For information see picachomountainiris.com.
Registration is $95, and two of the gardens are expected to be
guest gardens for the 2021 AIS Convention in Las Cruces.
MEDIAN IRIS SOCIETY
Hooker Nichols, President
This past spring, those who attended the MIS
mini-convention in Lafayette, Indiana prior to the AIS
Convention, were presented with a fine display of median
irises spread throughout the various classes in the seven
tour gardens. Attendees were afforded the opportunity
to vote for their
favorites with the
following winners:
Best Seedling
98-B34-13 (Chuck
Chapman, MTB);
Best SDB ‘Portland
Pink’ (Paul Black
2015); Best IB ‘Deep
Secret’ (Larry
Lauer 2015); Best
MTB ‘At Last My
Blue’ (Ken Fisher
2015); and, Best
‘At Last My Blue’
(Ken Fisher 2015, MTB)
BB ‘Impertinent’ (Bruce Filardi 2011). In addition they voted
the following awards of the Don Waters Region 6 In-Region
winner ‘Breakfast In Bed’ (Chuck Bunnell 2014, MTB), and
the Hal Stahly Out-of-Region winner ‘At Last My Blue’,
previously mentioned above as the overall MTB winner.
The Oklahoma Iris Society, headquartered in Oklahoma
City, will again sponsor the next Median mini-convention
prior to the National Convention in 2020. This group of
enthusiastic iris growers is equipped to handle a miniconvention.
The request for guest irises will come out in
future editions of IRISES.
We are excited that several new median hybridizers
are looking forward to sending guest plants to this
future endeavor. The re-emergence of some well known
hybridizers who have not recently released any new
medians have also indicated that they plan to send plants
for this event.
Chatter indicates that the southern median growers
hope for a semi-normal winter season to aid in a normal
spring bloom for the medians. It should be noted that
median rebloom was tremendous due to the extended long
growing season this year in the South.
SPURIA IRIS SOCIETY
Andi Rivarola, President
Coming to New Orleans this year for the National
Convention of the American Iris Society? The Spuria Iris
Society’s VP, Anna Cadd, will be giving a program, so we
hope to you see you there. Also, interested in a poll of SIS
members’ most popular spuria irises? A summary of the
yearly results will be published in our winter newsletter.
To help disseminate the knowledge and understanding of
lovely spuria irises, visit spuriairissociety.org.
d
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Winter 2018 AIS Bulletin 13