The flowering season has just ended with a hot and windy flourish and it is always a bit sad to see all the bloom gone and all those dead heads reminding us of work to be done. It has been a very colourful season and a lot of people have come through the garden.

We begin digging the rhizomes to fill orders from the beginning of December with the last December orders being processed about the 14th. We take a months break and then get back to digging in February and through to March. We then will shift all the Tall Bearded Irises. This is a huge job and it is hard to get started as we know it will require a major effort!

We have returned from the New Zealand Iris Society Covention in Cromwell with the Begg Shield awarded for my iris Atavus. Irises for this competition are grown on site for 3 years and judged at convention so I was very excited that it performed at the right time. David's lovley iris Afterburner was looking excellent there as well, so we are very pleased to see our irises, bred and selected for NZ conditions, to be doing so well.

Central Otago with it's Mediterranean climate is proving to be a good place to grow the aril irises from the Mediterranean area. We do have a few listed in our catalogue and I have produced some hybrids as well I thought they were growing better there than they do for us here. Our climate in Nelson is a bit too humid for them so it was great to see them looking so good. We had a very informative talk from Pat Toolan from Adelaide. Pat is a specialist grower of Arils. She recommends planting them in gravel above a good soil and with with the rhizome not touching the soil. This helps to overcome the problem of summer rains which are not tolerated by these irises. They soon send their roots down into the soil below.

We have a small iris group here in Nelson and bravely have offered to host the NZ convention in 2011. If you are living here or moving here we could do with some help in this venture so we would love to hear from you.