Alvin Arbuckle's iris

prize iris:
Alvin Arbuckle’s irises always won.

On a recent drive around town looking for the old homes that are still lived in, I drove past The Arbuckle's old home. It was such a sad experience not to see Alvin's well cared for, beautiful iris garden. Which he had maintained for so many years for all of us to enjoy.

Alvin was born at home, 2780 Martha St., in 1905. Now nearly 104, he has been unable to care for them the past few years and did not want his prize plants to fall into other hands.

This story is about how he propagated his prize-winning flowers, as told to me in an interview many years ago.

His wife, Peggy, started the iris collection when she bought five plants that he planted. She loved flowers so they bought a few more iris and joined the Iris Society.

Everyone was talking about seedlings so he began learning to produce them. All the iris in his yard were seedlings that he bred and developed.

If he saw a pretty iris, he crossed it with another pretty iris and they would bloom in two years. He had bought an iris 30 years ago with just a small amount of icing on the edge of the bloom His specialty was crossing those types of flowers and developing a large area of icing around the edge of the blossom.

He was afraid to show some he has developed because someone might steal them, as they are pretty rare. That is one reason he wanted them destroyed when he was unable to care for them.

He would pollinate the blooms by taking the pollen out with a little pair of tweezers and place it on the lip of the one he wanted to cross pollinate. A little bee cannot pollinate an iris because it is too small, but a bumblebee is large enough.

He goes in the iris and the pollen sticks to his back and then when he goes to another iris the pollen is rubbed off on the little lip on the other Iris.

Arbuckle fed his iris steer manure and placed a regular balanced fertilizer on the plants in winter. In the spring, when the bud first begins to swell, he gave the plants a shot of super phosphate for a big growing boost.

He would place the fertilizer in the soil by sprinkling it a little ways from the plant. He planted the seeds he gathered in decomposed material from the mountains.

Irises need a lot of fertilizer to develop to their potential. They do have a disease problem known as brown spot from too much wetness.

Arbuckle divided his irises every three years He saved the biggest bulbs and let them dry a little bit before he replanted them.

They need to be fed and watered to get the big blossoms otherwise they will get smaller and smaller. They do not suffer from the heat or too much water in the winter. If you get them bred up too high, they will not cross because they have no pollen, but you can put pollen on them and they will produce seeds. Some of the new ones you purchase will not pollinate because they have no pollen, but you can put pollen on them and they will produce seeds.

He started the hobby as a relaxing way to unwind after reviewing plans for large buildings, ordering and purchasing the materials needed for construction and hiring construction crews when he worked for Brennen.

His hobby of breeding iris would let him forget his stressful work and all his problems.

Another item he built for Peggy many years ago was a fishpond in the yard.

As a child, I loved to stand on the step, feed the fish and watch them wim in and out of the different plants.

Thank you Alvin for many memories of a beautiful garden.