Median Winners
In 2018 Iris Shows
Among the many
gardeners who comment
about the variable weather
conditions in the U. S., 2018
gave new opportunities for
them to express themselves.
In many parts of the country
a colder than usual winter
prevailed, and was followed
by an unseasonable, quick
warm-up to the 70s and even
80s in February 2018. In the
Midwest some SDBs were
reported to have bloomed
the first week of March (!), a
full month ahead of normal.
Then the freezes hit in
April resulting in an almost
complete wipe out of SDB
bloom. In my St. Louis area
garden SDB bloom was the
worst in over 50 years of
record keeping.
But the good news was
that the later IB and MTB
bloom was outstanding. Of
my 75+ MTB varieties every
single one bloomed and most
were better than ever before.
My few BBs along with their
big cousins the TBs were
unaffected and were super in
their bloom too.
COMPILED BY JIM MORRIS, MISSOURI
‘Tom Tit’ (Arthur John Bliss 1919, MTB)
, nancy mcdonald
‘Tagline’ (Joe Ghio 2018, BB)
, brad collins
38 AIS Bulletin Winter 2019