I am at my sister's iris farm now, working of course. I got here Friday and will be here for two weeks. I have a small box that I am collecting some rhizomes in and it is getting full so I will have to get a larger box. lol You know that's how it goes with plants. I have a little space left back in Woodinville for a few more gallon pots. Today John, my brother-in-law, will be digging blues and purples and I already know I want a Splatter Matters and Liberty Classic. I have put a few new ones in my box that won't be in the catalog till January. They are done shipping orders for this season and we are planting and potting for next Spring.

My jobs so far have been cutting and chopping the rhizomes for both Lesley, my sister to plant in the field, and for Mom who pots in the greenhouses. I wash the rhizomes for Mom and sort them into bags by variety and carry them up to the greenhouses for her to pot up. (She is 86.) I have been cleaning dead leaves in the field and will do that again today so that they are cleaned up a bit before John digs. Otherwise the dead leaves go everywhere and it's a mess. It's hot out in the field so I figure John has the toughest job. That's not all he does, of course. Right now he has gone for potting soil for Mom. He uses the tractor to get the beds ready.

There are just too many things to mention, as you know. This year I will be driving my parents old car home. They had planned to get a new one and Mom has done that. It is easier to drive a car to Woodinville from here than to drive my car here from Florida. It will be nice to have my own car available. I still plan to mostly walk everywhere but there are places that it is not convenient to walk or bike because of distance or what I need to carry back home.

In the older manufactured home park where we live in Woodinville, I have planted about 30 irises at my mother-in-law's place and I found another gardener a couple houses away who was delighted to get some irises. I gave her about 50 in pots that needed to be planted in the ground and she had the space. I don't have any good places to plant in the ground so I have planted a bunch in larger pots. That way I can move them around, if need be, to catch the sun or get them out of the rain if it is getting too wet for them.

So much else going on. I have to sign my husband and myself up for a class for Continuing Education Credits for our massage licenses in Florida. I think I found one that is approved for Florida and it is in Seattle which is good for us. It is a weekend workshop on muscle testing and it looked interesting. I'll have to check into that today because it is in October.

I enjoy all the pictures everyone puts up. Do you have to be a paid member to do that? I am not sure how you get all these pictures up. Of course, I am so busy right now there is no time for that and I have to get downstairs and get moving.

Chat with you again soon!

Cheryl

You must find a hybridizer willing to name one of their seedlings after your friend. It is the hybridizer who names the iris.

So look around at the different hybridizers and contact them to see if they would be interested in naming one of their upcoming introductions after your friend.

Of course you could do some hybridizing...LOL. It takes about 5 years or more and you'd have to plant a lot of seeds. I did some hybridizing this spring and have 27 seed pods that I'll be planting the seeds from this month. They will difinitely not all make it. Later next Spring I will have to find a place to plant all the ones that come up. I have faith I will find someone willing to help me out. Then it will be another year before I will see any blooms to see if I got something worth keeping for another year to take a look at it again. It's a lot of time and work.

I have 14 seed pods at my sister's and she is going to plant them for me. She has warned me she doesn't get the greatest germination results but good enough that they introduce some every year. Of course by now they have a backlog of plants they are evaluating. They discard lots!

I don't know a lot about the genetics of what's dominate and what's not but I am learning. As I learn my choices on what to cross will be better. Right now it's what's blooming at the same time and what's handy, and if it's not raining as pollen and rain don't mix very well.

There is a lot to it. The plant would have to be registered then, too. See if you have any local hybridizers. Let me know how you do on it.

Again, my apologies for not seeing this earlier.

Cheryl