First bloom of the season 1 of the 14 iris I got from my grandmother's house the year she died when I went in for a shodow box of sewing thimbles I and the family and collected for her. She was an avid quilter (I have six she raised me) I found the iris I had collected for her as I mowed the yards up and down the street blooming and her I am today Eleanor Roosevelt
Glad to see a 7A blooming, especially since it has history. I'm in 7A/7B, too, but just barely getting started. Some resources put me in 7A; others put me in 7B. Whatever! Congrats on the bloomer!!
Rockytop is about an hour or so West of me never been there. I've never been able to find enough there I liked to put up an order I probably could but I already have most of Tom Parkhills stuff which was how I found him. Been out weeding found six more arilbreds with bloom stalks
Oh but Lucy nothing could be further from the truth at last count he had I believe 22 introductions in the last 50 years I was and is the most critical person I ever known when it came to bloom. I still have 2 seedlings he gave me that were to be introduced. After he gave them to me a bad wind storm went thru neither was introduced because they had blown over. The reality is Tom had no use for the computer and his efforts suffer for it. I am the only person I've seen openly support his intros here or in the Facebook community. I hope this doesn't sound like a tirade I just feel he's been overlooked at a great loss to the iris world.
For me restraint has become easier over the last twenty years. I look at catalogs and web pages but I don't buy anything based on its looks but on its breeding potential. far to many photos are glorified and I've been so disappointed so many times that it has lost some lustre for me. Be very wary of photos where there is no sunshine in the photo (appears darker) and any photo that has a fuzzy or smudged looking background.I concentrate on new patterns these days and I pretty much skip the newer hybridizers their work tends to repeat and most never realize they just added another purple self to the pool with no significant new traits. In twenty years I've introduced nothing and probably never will. I'm very critical. Sorry to many years as a union rep and company lies.
