Doglover, I wish I knew you last summer, I divided about 40 varieties and hand many I threw out as I couldn't find homes for them. Tried to sell them on Craigs list at $2. each, and although I sold a lot, and gave many away, I still tossed out a lot of them. I am at a point where now I am getting mostly new introductions, as I have most of the older varieties that I want. Garden Art? Do you create it or collect it? I don't have a "showy" garden, i.e. lots of artsy stuff, lol, just lots of flowers. I'm not artistic enough to do that, but I enjoy the garden art. Last year they had lots of garden art at the "Art Fair on the Square", in Madison. I bought one piece, a humming bird at a lily cast in iron, with some brass. Kind of cute, I put it in a bed of flowers that I have around the grave of my Schnauser. I have been trying to polinate some iris too, either I get seed pods, and they don't germinate (except one seed I'm still waiting on to bloom), or like last year, I made about 20 crosses, and got two seed pods, one ended up with no viable seeds, and one, the stem rotted off before the seeds were mature. Ugh. Not looking to become a hybridizer or anything, just want to see if I can do it. Funny thing though, many years ago I bought a black Iris, it grew and bloomed for about 2 years, then died back, and came up again and bloomed deep purple. Well, I now know that it must have been a seedling of the original black (of which I don't know the name.) This purple iris has the most amazing fragrance, and such a strong fragrance, that you can smell it from a long distance. It's deep purple with a "whiteish" beard. I keep it just because of it's nice color, and good fragrance. It's a nicely shaped bloom too. But it was a total accident. lol.
