AIS Region 7
Friday welcome reception, Saturday show and banquet, Sunday judges training (garden judging with Jody Nolin) ... Embassy Suites, 245 Lexington Green Circle. Booking details through this link.
Saturday registration, board meeting, rhizome auction and banquet. Sunday judges training (Spuria Jim Hedgecock) ... Fairfield Inn & Suites, 130 Tanner Lane, Clinton, TN. Note: due to football game, best to book early. Booking details through this link.
American Iris Society - Region 7 spans Tennessee and Kentucky, with USDA climate zones that range from 5 to 8, from mountains to valleys, plateaus, and the Mississippi floodplain. Soil types range from clay to gravel with wonderful loess in the western part of Tennessee. Weather is everything and anything; the only thing we know for sure is that it can change abruptly from drought to deluge and back again in summer, and from subfreezing to balmy in midwinter.
Before the big commercial iris gardens on the west coast dominated the iris scene, the region was a center of top notch hybridizing, producing several Dykes medal winners in the 1930s and 1940s - Dauntless, Copper Lustre, Mary Geddes, and Chivalry - and, in 1978, Bride's Halo. The iris is the state flower of Tennessee, although we aren't exactly in agreement as to which iris!
