I am searching for William Simon iris. Bill hybridized iris of which 41 are registered to his name. I am looking to put together a memorial garden of his iris. At present I have 21 growing in my yard. Bill's "Alluring Pink" has won many "Best of Show" awards for us!

Gosh -- I don't have a single, solitary William Simon Iris. What years did he hybridize? Would most of his be historics? Or ultra-historics?

I am going to dig out some of my catalogs from the 70-80's one of these days to jog my memory of Simon iris and will ask my friends here if anyone still grows them. I'll bet they are present in a number of gardens of people who don't keep track of names as they were quite popular at the time. This may be a real labor of love for you Mike.

Paul2032 said:I am going to dig out some of my catalogs from the 70-80's one of these days to jog my memory of Simon iris and will ask my friends here if anyone still grows them. I'll bet they are present in a number of gardens of people who don't keep track of names as they were quite popular at the time. This may be a real labor of love for you Mike.

Thanks for your reply Paul. Bill got into iris hybridizing in the mid 80's and likely posted to catalogs about '86 thru '90. Bill taught me to take pride in all plants that I grew, so when I started to continue growing his I tagged everything in my yard! Two of the outstanding features of his iris are ruffles and "diamond" dusted petals, an extremely beautiful feature. Again, thanks for your impute, Michael

Muddymitts said:Gosh -- I don't have a single, solitary William Simon Iris. What years did he hybridize? Would most of his be historics? Or ultra-historics?

Bill was hybridizing between 1984 and 1994, his wife Betty and Hal Staley introducing his later ones. Almost all were TB's. Michael





























h

Paul2032 said:I am going to dig out some of my catalogs from the 70-80's one of these days to jog my memory of Simon iris and will ask my friends here if anyone still grows them. I'll bet they are present in a number of gardens of people who don't keep track of names as they were quite popular at the time. This may be a real labor of love for you Mike.

This follow up is to say that almost all of Bill's iris were TB's

Searching by characteristic Hybridizer in the Iris database will allow you to view the registered Iris hybridized by William Simon. Searches using William Simon, W. Simon and Simon all yield different numbers of Iris. It depends on how the name was initially noted in the registry.