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ADDITIONAL COPIES AVAILABLE OF THE MIS 50TH ANNIVERSARY HISTORY ISSUE – THE MEDIANITE Available by mail for $23.00 including postage (Overseas $27.00 including postage). Check payable to MIS and mail to Editor Rita Gormley, |
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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Happy Birthday, MIS! Fifty golden years. The Median Iris Society is in its fiftieth year of existence this year. Special events are being planned to celebrate this milestone. As the current MIS President, I want to encourage each of you to participate in as many functions as you can. We hope to have a special program during the annual meeting of the MIS, during the AIS National Convention in Oklahoma City. Then, right after the national convention, the good folks of the Lincoln (Nebraska) Iris Society will be hosting a median convention, “Prairie Gold – 50 Years of Medians”. So, when you’re planning your vacation, try to tack on a few extra days and “follow the party” on up to Lincoln! Seeing that so much of the early work in medians was done in that part of the country, and continues today, I find it most appropriate that the invitation would be extended from them to host the median convention. You will find more details, including registration information, elsewhere in this issue. The festivities begin with this edition of The Medianite. The first thing you noticed, when it arrived in the mail, was that it is considerably bigger than usual. The MIS Board of Directors voted to have this issue be an acknowledgment of this anniversary, to share with you some of the events, history, and hybridizing which have occurred along the way towards where we are today. This special issue pays homage to those median lovers who had the enthusiasm, the wisdom, the organizational skills, and the foresight to form The Median Iris Society, 50 years ago. Very astute minds collaborated to develop the classifications of median irises into the four classes we know today, and to establish the criteria for each of those classes. I think you’d have to say they did a pretty good job of it – the standards applied today are virtually the same as those at inception! We pay tribute to those hybridizers who had the vision, the curiosity, the artistry, and the patience, as the classic TV series, “Star Trek” said: “To go forth where no man [or woman!] has gone before”. Perhaps cliché but nonetheless true – we wouldn’t be where we are today, in the evolution and advancement of medians, had it not been for the groundwork laid by these trailblazers. As a society, permit me to recap some of the benefits one receives, being a member of this section of the American Iris Society (AIS): 1. One look and you’ll have to agree – The Medianite is at the top as one – if not the best — section publications within AIS. We are very fortunate that the Editor and the Publications Committee carry on a tradition of excellence, long a hallmark for this society. A wise man once said that the lifeline of an organization is its written word. The newsletter is the primary way to keep far-reaching membership informed and current in that for which they are interested. A strong newsletter is a significant indicator of the health of that society. 2. MIS hosts a website (www.medianiris.com), extensive in content, which allows any web surfer to be exposed to median irises. This piece of cyberspace is beneficial to those gardeners who utilize the World Wide Web to further their education and interests. 3. MIS participates in the AIS Awards System by sponsoring the awarding of four medals annually to the best of each median classification, as voted by AIS judges. The Knowlton Medal is awarded to the best Border Bearded (BB), the Williamson-White Medal for the best Miniature Tall Bearded (MTB), the Hans and Jacob Sass Medal to the best Intermediate Bearded (IB), and the Cook-Douglas Medal for the best Standard Dwarf Bearded (SDB). As with the symposium, many growers use the awards results each year to help make the decision on what new varieties they would like to try growing. Additionally, over the years, work has also been done in crossing medians with arils and arilbreds, producing a hybrid of the two referred to as “arilbred-medians”. Several such irises have been awarded the William Mohr Medal and the C.G. White Medal, sponsored by the Aril Society International. 4. MIS sponsors a Display Garden network, where MIS members from all parts of the country agree to include and emphasize medians in their collection, participate in testing new varieties being introduced, and then sharing that evaluation with the rest of the society. This network of growers provides the median hybridizer with a golden opportunity to distribute his/her work to those participants willing to accept guest plants, either new introductions or those seedlings under serious consideration for release to commerce. One of the prerequisites to becoming a display garden is to allow visitation to all who have an interest. Distribution is the key to success in irises, and this additional exposure helps ensure that AIS judges have an additional venue for which to see those varieties which appear on the ballot each year. 5. MIS sponsors an annual symposium which gives MIS members the opportunity to participate in voicing their opinions as to their favorite medians in each classification. Many irisarians, both the newcomer and the seasoned grower, use this popularity poll as a buying guide when deciding what new median irises they want to add to their gardens in the upcoming season. 6. MIS endorses and participates in special Median Conventions, hosted in various parts of the country by clubs willing to take on the project. These occur, usually, every third year, and are purposefully scheduled on dates that do not conflict with the national AIS convention each year. They afford the hybridizer and the median lover with another opportunity to showcase and view an assemblage of the newest medians in one location, often including those types which are rarely seen in bloom during the national conventions. Previous Median Conventions have been held in Oklahoma City, the Boston area, Portland, Oregon, and, this year, Lincoln, Nebraska. 7. MIS sponsors the Bennett C. Jones Award, given to a hybridizer for his/her efforts towards the advancement of median irises. Nominations may be made by any iris grower. This special award had its inaugural year just this last year (2006), with the awarding of the honor to the man for which the award is named. 8. Another new award, sponsored by MIS, is making its debut this year, the Ben R. Hager Cup, which will be given to the median iris voted most popular in conjunction with the annual AIS Convention. As with the other two convention awards, any person registered to attend the convention has the opportunity to cast a vote to select their favorite median. I am especially excited with this new award, because it honors one of the greatest hybridizers of the 20th century, and will first be awarded in my home state (celebrating its centennial birthday this year also, by the way), at the Oklahoma City National Convention. I extend a deeply sincere “thank you” to all of the people who have worked so hard in making this special edition a reality — to the members of the Publications Committee, to those who have contributed articles, to those who have helped fund the project, and to those hybridizers who have bred the irises which are discussed within these pages. This has been an expensive endeavor, obviously, with the inclusion of as much color photography as we could, and several persons and clubs have contributed graciously to this undertaking. Without your caring generosity, this project would not have come to fruition. A list of contributors appears in this newsletter. Look over the list, and the next time you see them, give them a hug or a slap on the back to say “thank you” for helping to provide the monetary resources for this special issue of The Medianite. The Median Iris Society is here to educate, to inform, to share our “lessons learned”, to showcase the advancement of medians, and, for Pete’s sake, to have fun. Enjoy! We hope this special issue gives you many hours of reading pleasure. And I hope to see you somewhere on the circuit this spring!
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