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HollyJohnson2017 -04-01 - 15 Aug 2017
I became a member of the Iris Society of Minnesota in the summer of 2016. The Iris Society of Minnesota works in conjunction with the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and almost every fall we assist in the division of overgrown clumps at the Arboretum. All of the varieties of Irises that are in the "Iris Garden" at the Arboretum were donated by the Iris Society of Minnesota, and its members; some are even hybridized by its members.
In 2017, I took on a giant project of trying to photograph all of the Irises, that bloomed, at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. There are about 500 varieties of Irises that are planted in the "Iris Garden" at the Arboretum. I tried to take photos of all the different angles, for identification purposes. Any comments that I have posted are based upon these photos, and bloom times have been approximated. I have considered bloom times to be the dates from when the first bud actually opens into a blossom, until the last date where there was a blossom present, even if it was starting to fade. If I didn't get a photo of the actual first or last bloom, I approximated the dates, based on how much time was between photos of buds and blooms, or how many buds were left to bloom. I will be sharing my results with the American Iris Society, the Iris Society of Minnesota, the Historic Iris Preservation Society, and other smaller groups. My main purpose is to have photos of these varieties, that are of good enough quality to be able to help with the identification of Irises. This may even help with varieties that have lost their names, in case someone tries to go to the trouble of trying to identify their unknown Irises. I hope you enjoy the photos that I post.