I would assume that most folks who have grown any number of irises at all have grown some unknowns along the way. I grow close to 800 named cultivars and about another 100 unknowns. While I do maintain a casual interest in identifying my unknowns, I don't make myself crazy over it. If I come across a photo that looks similar to one of my unknowns and I can find a reliable source for the named iris, I'll try to acquire it to do side by side growth comparisons with my unknown in my own garden.

On the other hand, I'm perfectly happy to enjoy unknowns as unknowns. After all, the flowers are still as beautiful whether I know the accurate identity or not. Besides, there's a very good chance that any particular iris, esp. an unknown historic, isn't a registered iris at all. There are undoubtedly countless unregistered seedlings being grown and shared in gardens around the world. I could spend a lifetime trying to identify an unknown with no name to find!

If you really want to try to identify your unknowns, then keep reading the ID materials at the HIPS website, become a member, and take advantage of their ID assistance program. However if this process is making you lose the enjoyment of the irises themselves, then forget about trying to ID them and just appreciate them for their natural beauty. Why grow them if you can't enjoy them?

Happy irising,

Laurie

dmparmelee,
I gather you were always able to enjoy your irises in the past without knowing their names? Why not simply continue to do so and continue to share your spares? As you have shared heaps and heaps already without their names (as have many thousands of people) then imagine if everyone of those people was getting themselves stressed trying to work out the names of their irises?
If yours are old ones like honorabile, then there will be plenty of them around already with their name tags on, to pass on to future gardeners. You are not obliged to leave an inheritance of correctly named irises. If you are getting rid of them, then just give them to someone, un-named as they are now, for their own pleasure.
An iris by any other name will still look as beautiful.
Cheers, Jan

Try not to stress about the names of your irises. I moved last year and brought hundreds of my flowers with me, but it was hard to have time to label everything. So lots of my named irises are no longer labeled and I will have to wait til they bloom and then look at the pictures of the ones I had bought to compare. I'm not sure I'll ever get them labeled again. But I will still love them just the same. It will only matter, if I need the name if I trade with someone.

My newest ones, I plan to keep named and labeled. Maybe you could get a starting point of from now on, all new ones will be labeled, but I won't worry about the other ones. Life is too short to stress too much about this.

By the way, I sure wish I lived down the road from you when you were setting out baskets of irises on the side of the road.

Happy Gardening!

Susie