Newsletter: October 2004
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN IRIS SOCIETY Inc.
Editorial
The show has been held for another year. This year it was held in the Estonian Hall in North Adelaide and the flowers, as usual, were stunning. Julia Jacobs assisted by her friend Jenny created a magnificent display on the stage featuring grapevines with tan and gold bearded iris which looked lovely against the deep tan velvet curtains.
The foyer was also decorated with grapevines and bearded iris, this time in shades of blue against a wall of mirrors. The club is so lucky to have a floral wizard like Julia at the helm.
The cut flowers were judged by Ian Barry, a club member who comes from Dimboola in Victoria. Ian talked his way through the judging giving the newly qualified judges an insight to his ideas of a top iris cut. Thankyou to Graham Kuchel for stewarding and John Turner, the scribe for the prize tickets, your help was invaluable.
Ann Head had a wonderful show winning multiple prizes with her tall bearded seedling which was eventually judged Champion Iris of the Show. Colleen Modra was unlucky not to win this as her stem of Romantic Gentleman was magnificent on Friday evening with four huge blooms out on well spaced branches. Unfortunately it had started to fold up by judging next morning and missed out on a ticket, a case of ‘it opened a day too soon’. Better luck next year Colleen.
There will have to be some changes made to the way entries are received and tabled for next years show to make it easier for the organising stewards to set up the tables and avoid the confusion of the last minute rush of entries on the tables.
Life Membership for Darrelle Watson
On Sunday afternoon at the show Julia Jacobs had the enjoyable duty of presenting Darrelle Watson with a plaque and name badge giving her life membership of the SA Iris Society. Darrelle was a founding member of the society and has held many official positions over the years. Recently her health has not been good enough to enable her to attend evening meetings but she still keeps the society supplied with items for the raffles and the trading table and often offers useful comments on receipt of her newsletter and minutes. Darrelle’s mother Muriel was present to see the presentation and was very happy to see Darrelle’s contribution recognised by the members.
Get well: Some of our members have had some bad luck. Former member, Catherine McCann's daughter was hit by a motor vehicle some months ago and is still in the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in a coma. Our thoughts and prayers are with Catherine and her family. John Turner is recovering from surgery, we hope he is back to his old self soon. Di and Herb Mitterer were involved in a car accident two days before the show resulting in their withdrawing their commercial stand from the show. Thankfully they were not badly injured, but are very sore from the impact. We all hope they are soon feeling better.
Minutes of the meeting held on October 14th 2004.
Apologies: John and Rosemary Turner, Jules de Brenni, Pat Toolan
September Minutes: Passed as correct Move Rhonda Burg 2nd Sue Stribley. Carried.
Correspondence: West Australia Newsletter, Herb Society, Fuchsia Society, Royal Adelaide Zoo.
General Business
Salisbury Garden Show: Thank you to Marlene Gibson and Betty Parsons for manning our stall at the Salisbury Garden Show, which was quite successful.
The Judging workshop which was conducted by Helen Reid for members was a great success, with everyone gaining a lot more knowledge and with student judges gaining good passes. These new judges will be “Junior Judges” for a time until they have judged at iris or country shows and shown their competence. Many thanks go to Max Jacobs, Graham Kuchel and Don Burg for cooking the BBQ on both days, a job well done. Trevor Hilton also assisted at Kuchels’ on Saturday.
Being able to see the Kuchels and the Jacobs gardens was interesting for the members with two totally different garden styles and Kuchels’ nursery garden in Strathalbyn another style again with lots of seedlings being trialed.
South Australian trial garden: Colleen Modra advised that Les will have the trial bed and the Dykes Medal bed ready for planting in April. (Cost to enter a plant is $5 payable to the treasurer.)
Publicity: The Independent Weekly, a new Sunday paper will be photographing Sue Stribley’s garden and advertising the show.
Show and Tell:
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Nell Tanner: A beautiful Blue Iris tea set made by Symphony consisting of a teapot and cup and saucer, purchased from Hill Billies at Stirling which everyone wanted.
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Belinda Meredith: Showed some of her craft work which had been entered in the Royal Adelaide Show, a stunning cross stitch picture of Queen in Calico made into a stool, a ceramic Iris painted vase in various colours and a ceramic sandwich plate with a lovely blue Iris painted in the centre of the plate.
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Pam Hilton: A Dutch Iris- probably Viscount with four blooms on one stem grown by Julia Jacobs.
Floral design demonstration: Julia Jacobs constructed four beautiful arrangements of iris illustrating interpretations and song titles using tall bearded and Dutch iris to inspire members to enter floral work in the show.
Judging revision: A selection of cuts and florets were set out in show format and the student judges were asked to judge the sections giving their thoughts on each. This showed some differences in reasons for results but the overall results were mostly the same. Members who had not been to the judging school were very interested in the comments.
Next meeting: SundayDecember 12th - A social luncheon meeting at 12 noon in the beautiful garden of Sue and Geoff Stribley at Goulds Creek Road, One Tree Hill. Bring food to pool and enjoy the companionship of members in a lovely setting.
If you wish you can bring two (fairly late release) rhizomes to swap with other members.
