Bearded Irises 2015

[zeblouz]

Hello Pauli,
I'm not certain your first image is that of I. pallida alba. The distinctive thing about Pallida are its scarious (dry, silvery-white coloured) bud sheaves. These, however, are visible on the very dark form on your third image. Lets see what others think.
Lawrence

[Brian Ellis]

Visitors to Chelsea this year will have seen Howard Nurseries Gold Medal winning stand of Iris developed by Cedric Morris some 50 odd years ago.  These were re-discovered by Sarah Cook who was head gardener at Sissinghurst until retiring to Suffolk in 2004, and whilst at Sissinghurst she found a label for iris ‘Benton Nigel’.  As she had been brought up in Suffolk near Benton End where Cedric Morris gardened she was intrigued and set out to find out more about his breeding programme.  From the early 1940s he was raising 1,000 seedlings a year by hand-pollination and Sarah has established that at least 90 were named.  So far she has found 25 of these introductions and another five are possibilities.  Many of these have the ‘Benton’ prefix although one that really caught the eye was simply named ‘Crathie’.  She has National Collection status and so it was on a miserable wet Sunday that we went to her open day and we thought you might like to see why.  One of those I particularly liked I couldn’t see a label for so I had to wait my turn and ask.  It turned out that it is one of the possibilities and is likely to be ‘Benton Rubeo’ named after his pet macaw - typical of me to pick a quirky one!  “Would you like one” was the next question and you can guess what the answer was, so for a small fee we have it here.  I haven’t named the photo as it has not been fully verified yet.

If anyone has an Iris with the Benton prefix that is not in the National Collection she would be delighted to hear from you.

[David King]

These are some of the named Benton Irises we saw yesterday and a general view.

1.  General view
2.  'Benton Susan'
3.  'Benton Cordelia'
4.  'Benton Olive'
5.  'Benton Arundel'

[David King]

These are some the others that I, unfortunately, couldn't get at the labels.

[fermi de Sousa]

Two dark purple dwarf bearded iris in the garden at present.
The first is 'Wanganui Gem' from NZ and the smaller one came from the Seedex as Iris subbiflora
cheers
fermi

[fermi de Sousa]

More DBIs:
First a nice blue in my friend Gillian's front garden;
a clump of an "old style" cultivar in the rock garden;
'Rivetting'
'Making Eyes'
'Umber & Olives'
cheers
fermi

[fermi de Sousa]

A new Median Iris for us this year, 'Blue Flirt'
cheers
fermi

[Chris Johnson]

In the winter gloom, I have been sorting a few old images and came across this one. It's a plant we have had some years but the label has long gone. Can anyone give a name to it please?