Newsletter: July 2003
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN IRIS SOCIETY Inc.
Editorial
The excitement of the new bloom season is starting in my garden with lots of spikes showing already on the newest lot of seedlings. These are all bred from the super early ones I've been working on crossed with new purchases from various breeders and will probably be mostly dogs but there just might be a special one somewhere. Even if there is not there will be lots of super early irises blooming and colouring the garden before the rest wake up.
Naracoorte Country Fair Iris Show Saturday October 18th 2003
Convenor: Rosemary Miller (Phone
8762 2259) email: rosemarymiller@hotmail.com.au
REGULATIONS
Classes 1-8 all flowers must be grown by exhibitor.
Exhibits to be staged by 9am and not removed before
4.30pm.
ENTRY FEE 50 cents (except Class 10 FREE ENTRY)
ENTRIES CLOSE Wed October 15th
The Secretary's office will be open between 1.00pm and
5.30pm on Wednesday Oct 15th to receive entries or post
to PO Box 533, Naracoorte SA 5271.
Classes
Bearded Iris, 3 distinct varieties (stem)
Bearded Iris, 1 (stem)
Bearded Iris, 6 distinct varieties (floret)
Bearded Iris, 3 distinct varieties (floret)
Bearded Iris, 1 (floret)
Dutch Iris, 3 distinct varieties
Dutch Iris, 1
Iris, any other variety
Arrangement featuring Iris
Arrangement featuring Iris, arranged at the show by Primary School child.
Champion Iris (Classes 1-8) Trophy
donated by Green Leaf Garden Centre
Most Successful Exhibitor Trophy donated by Mrs Janet
Higgs
Class 9 Trophy donated by Hutchisons Nursery
Class 10 Prizes donated by Mrs Gwen Mutton
It would be great if some of our members were able to
exhibit in this show and publicize our own show and club
at the same time. There must be many iris growers in the
Naracoorte area to consider holding a special show like
this.
Special Thankyou
Darrelle Watson was a founding member of the SA Iris Society. Her health no longer permits her to attend our meetings but she regularly sends plants, produce and items featuring iris for the club to use on the trading table and for the raffle. I hazard a guess that nearly every one who has won a prize in the raffles at any time has won something donated by Darrelle. Her quiet work for the club behind the scenes is greatly appreciated and we thank her.
SOUP KITCHEN
Thankyou to Natalie and Carol for providing the delicious soup and rolls for tea at the last meeting. This will be repeated at the August and September meetings with tasty soup and rolls available from 7pm. Cost is $3 a serve. Save yourself some time and have tea at the Mullins Gallery while supporting a fundraiser for the club.
Wanted
Nell Tanner is looking for old iris catalogues. She does not mind if they are not in colour as she only wants to find the history of some of her older varieties. If you can help you can contact Nell on 8535 7041 during the day or 8535 8218 after hours.
July speaker - Steve Forbes
Steve Forbes is the Director of the
Adelaide Botanical Gardens. He has previously worked in
Botanical Gardens in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney and in
Tanzania. Steve is a botanist with a passion for plants.
The talk began with a description of what a botanical
garden is. The mission statement of the Oxford Botanical
Gardens is carved over the archway into the garden. It
says "To promote learning and glorify the works of
God".
Botanical gardens started as a collection of plant
resourced from around the world with the potential to be
exploited for economic use as food, medicine, fibre and
timber. Later plants grown just for their beauty were
added. These plants were both dried for research in the
herbarium museum and living in the gardens. Early
travelers brought samples of new plants back from their
travels and these were added to collections.
Botanical gardens are changing constantly to keep up with
new discoveries. Schonberg, an early Director of the
Adelaide Botanical Gardens, discovered a giant waterlily
in the Amazon. This has been named after Queen Victoria
and a special greenhouse was constructed to grow this
beautiful plant. The greenhouse is named the Victoria
House and still houses the waterlily.
There was no plant exploration in the twentieth century
and Botanic gardens stagnated.
It is now recognised that Botanic gardens have a role to
play in conservation. The future must be respected as
well as the past and while important historical features
of the gardens must be retained there must be a plan for
the gardens in the future with planting of trees to
replace old specimens a major challenge. The Adelaide
gardens are working on conserving rare and threatened
species in South Australia and modeling how people can
have sustainable water efficient gardens.
The focus of the gardens is to do a few things really
well and to be more disciplined in the future. A review
plan is being developed.
There is a project to collect and conserve foundation
species from South Australia in a seed bank. Another
project is to train people from Madagascar in
conservation and environmental reconciliation who will
then work in their own country.
Uganda. Six months ago Steve and his wife, with a friend,
trekked into the mountains of Uganda on the border with
Congo through a World Heritage National Park. Ptolemy's
"Mountains of the Moon" are the source of the
Nile and have unique flora not found anywhere else. The
lowlands are thick rainforest up to 1,400 metres. Up to
2,500 metres there is podycarpus forest. At 3,500 metres
the cloud forest begins with African rosewood and
epiphytic ferns and mosses and giant lobelia which grow
up to six metres high in alpine equatorial Africa. These
are able to protect tender shoots from freezing by having
a well of antifreeze in the crown of the plant. At 4,500
metres there are senecios which look similar to the
lobelias. The lobelias are pollinated by blue sunbirds.
The round trek took eight days with help from a guide and
porters and climbed to 5,109 metres, the last part using
ropes and crampons to get to the top. This is a trek for
the very fit. Steve can give you travel details if you
want to try it!
Early Iris in bloom in Red Cliffs
From Dianne Dalla Santa
Back in 1997 the first irises were planted in a bed near
Big Lizzie, a land clearing tractor of huge proportions,
in Barclay Square in Red Cliffs. Some of you would have
seen that early bed of irises during the 1998 Sunraysia
Iris Convention and I'm pleased to report the bed has
recently had a big refurbishment. The irises were lifted,
old soil which possibly was a mass of tree roots
excavated and lovely new soil brought in and the bed
replanted. The iris bed which faces the Caulder Highway
now houses a memorial stone for the late Mr Ernie Wolfe,
the gentleman largely responsible for locating Big Lizzie
rusting away in a paddock many years ago and having her
returned to Red Cliffs.
From the original iris bed in Barclay Square, Red Cliffs,
irises have now been planted up in several other beds
within the main thoroughfare, added to and divided many
times since and now there is also a large circular bed in
Deakin Avenue, Mildura. Deakin Avenue is famous for the
beautiful garden beds in the grassed centre median strip
that divides this huge carriageway. Many clubs and
organizations are represented by these spectacular
circular plantings and the iris beds in bloom in both Red
Cliffs and Mildura often appear in television footage.
It is mid July with cold frosty mornings, cool sunny days
and the ground is so dry that my lawn is honeycombed with
ankle breaking cracks but right in the middle of town the
irises are starting to bloom! They do so at this time
every year under the powerful street lighting. I pass by
on my way to work every day and see more and more spikes
popping up. So far I can name just a few, New Moon,
Witching, a couple of classy plicatas, Epicentre may be
one but it is hard to tell whizzing by in a car. Some
golden oldies are out too; perhaps Malacca Straits or El
Paso, a blue which may be Pierre Menard as these were
some of the earliest irises I ever purchased and I now
cannot name them. The beds should have in excess of one
hundred varieties now with more recent additions from
local iris growers. A wonderful show is just beginning.
And given the conditions of being grown in beds in the
middle of melting bitumen roads on the harshest of summer
days and at present while not in the peak of condition
due to drought they are about to add the second best
rainbow that we can hope for.
I recently watched a program on television regarding the
Murray River and the battle to keep this mighty river's
mouth open down at the Coorong. Interestingly, Coorong
Avenue runs along one border of our property location. We
also have grave concerns for the health of the river from
which we irrigate our vines and for the first time in the
history of this soldier settlement irrigation district we
are being advised of restrictions to our water right. Our
family also uses the river for recreational purposes for
fishing and skiing too. We watch the skies for rain but
little has fallen in our area. This year is named 2003
International Year of Fresh Water but for us it was and
still is 2003 Year of the Dust Storms. For our river
systems and for our livelihoods may the rains come!
Minutes of the meeting held on July 10th at Mullins Gallery
Apologies - Brett Draper, Colleen
Modra, Sue Stribley, Margaret Douglass, Doreen Churchill,
Pan and Trevor Hilton, Graham Kuchel.
Correspondence in - Neutrog fliers, SA Cottage Gardens,
Camellia Society, Garden Clubs of Australia.
Financial report - Opening balance $2,033.76 Income
$139.50 Expenses $87.10 Closing balance cheque acc
$2,086.16. Cash Management acc $7,541.91, 2005 acc
$1,490.70, Petty cash $96.20 Club net worth $11,214.97
Trial garden - It was decided by members to keep the
trial garden at Mitterers' at Gawler as they have mains
water and do not have to rely on bore or dam water.
A coordinator will be appointed for the trial garden to
keep records.
Botanic gardens - The idea of the SAIS having a display
bed at the Botanic Gardens was brought up and will be
discussed at the next meeting with members to view their
ideas. It would be nice to have a display in the gardens
for the 2005 convention.
Judging school
Schedules will be made up to hold judging schools soon.
Show and tell
Ann Pillay brought in a walking
iris (Neomarica) to show members.
Carol Schmidt showed a lovely tall tin embossed with
irises and containing jelly fruits. Also passes to the
Hot Properties show at the Convention Centre.
Anne Head brought a selection of her seedling blooms from
reblooming and single blooming parents.
Julia Jacobs a cardigan with irises knitted into it.
Auction - A print of Dutch irises was donated. This was
auctioned by John Turner and purchased by Nell Tanner for
$26.
