This year had exceptionally early season. Bearded iris were about two weeks ahead of normal. Spuria iris were open about 5 weeks ahead of normal time. Mother nature continues to surprise us.

Our winter was mild and the early warm spring was kind to the iris plants. The survival rate was high. Incredible bloom this spring, even on the newly moved plants. What I did notice was the lack of increases on the moved plants. The cold summer last year meant that many plants did not get to mature enough before onset of winter. So, well there is good bloom, it appears as if there is an incredible amount of bloom out. That is plants put up good bloom stalks, but no increases to carry on for next year. I suspect that this is one of the problems regularly encountered on the Canadian Prairies with growing tall bearded iris. That is the nights during the summer are not warm enough to enable proper maturity of rhizomes. For more detail on this check out my article in the April AIS Bulletin on “Plant Maturity, Temperature and Rebloom”.

There are no new plants being introduced for this year. Several nice SDB have been selected for introduction, but won’t be introduced until next year.

The new seedlings that bloomed this year gave an incredible display. Many very nice selections for further evaluation. Later on, when I get time , I’ll be posting a selection of these seedlings for people to look at. Right now, all the work is behind and I’m playing a lot of catch-up.

The cold climate trial continues. A rough winter for the Prairies so the plants are getting a very thorough testing.

Next year the AIS convention is in Victoria BC. I hope to see a lot of Canadians coming out to this convention. For more information contact Ted Baker <tedbaker@shaw.ca>

Chuck Chapman