As I mentioned in my previous blog, my father's gardening activites are a large component of my earliest memories.
We had a large back yard with extra land available right outside the fence. He grew some vegetables, though I don't know what kind, but most of all, iris. He had a hobby of experimenting with cross-breeding of different colors of iris. He showed me at a young age how to do that with pollen from one flower introduced into a powdery place in another flower.
Sometimes he took me to iris "shows," where we saw other people's examples of their best blossoms. He must have taken his own to show sometimes. I remember that some people were trying hard to make a black iris . . . but so far, they were just dark purple. I have no memory of the other people at the flower shows . . .probably a bunch of "old people."
Recently, I got curious and looked up this information about the iris society: http://www.okiris.org/. Apparently, those iris shows that we went to may have been at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, which were not far from our house.
I've owned a home since 1996, and always thought I should have iris. I finally planted some bulbs in 2005. They have grown green leaves since the spring of 2006, but never bloomed until last year in the spring and summer of 2007. Lots of lucsious light purple blooms. See the photo above.
I think it's time in my life to get serious about iris. This coming fall (2009), I think I'll buy and plant LOTS of iris bulbs and see what I can get out of them. It takes a long time to get good results.
We had a large back yard with extra land available right outside the fence. He grew some vegetables, though I don't know what kind, but most of all, iris. He had a hobby of experimenting with cross-breeding of different colors of iris. He showed me at a young age how to do that with pollen from one flower introduced into a powdery place in another flower.
Sometimes he took me to iris "shows," where we saw other people's examples of their best blossoms. He must have taken his own to show sometimes. I remember that some people were trying hard to make a black iris . . . but so far, they were just dark purple. I have no memory of the other people at the flower shows . . .probably a bunch of "old people."
Recently, I got curious and looked up this information about the iris society: http://www.okiris.org/. Apparently, those iris shows that we went to may have been at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, which were not far from our house.
I've owned a home since 1996, and always thought I should have iris. I finally planted some bulbs in 2005. They have grown green leaves since the spring of 2006, but never bloomed until last year in the spring and summer of 2007. Lots of lucsious light purple blooms. See the photo above.
I think it's time in my life to get serious about iris. This coming fall (2009), I think I'll buy and plant LOTS of iris bulbs and see what I can get out of them. It takes a long time to get good results.
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