My pre 1950 favorite is Wabash(Williamson 1936). After 1950 I like Whole Cloth(Cook 1958). There are many others but I guess these are my picks.

Wabash totally holds it's own with the moderns - a great cultivar with lots of pizazz. There's no way I could pick just one favorite though, but for fragrance I love Picador. For color, Christabel. For sheer Wow! power, Amigo. So many...

Mike

My all time favorite is DRADY. It had not been registered until recently, and I think a mistake has been made with its registration. It looks like the perfect MTB to me, but it got registered as a BB.

It has white stds. and blue falls veined white. I don't recall any brown reticulations to spoil the harmony of colors.

It's a shame we cannot give anybody credit for hybridizing it. Nobody knows; maybe a bumblebee.

Walter Moores

Walter, Surely there must be a rest of the story. Were did it come from? Did it have the name before it was registered? How long has it been around? Do any commercial growers offer it? How did you know about an unregistered iris? Do you grow it? If it impresses you I am sure that I would like to have it. Lee Mincy

FAUSTINE, a border bearded (Lemon, 1859). Deep blue violet with striped falls. It's more like a miniature tall bearded for me when it blooms. Rather petite flowers with fabulous wiry branching. I've won best historic with it a couple times at local shows.

Or

MARGARITA, a tall bearded from Schreiner's 1968. White standards with violet falls with a diffuse lighter edge. Gorgeous still...doesn't show it's age. Very striking in a clump and has good stalks. Love it.

Lee, I first heard of Drady on the old iris-l chat group back in '96 or '97. Everybody raved over it. It seems it was pretty well known in CA. It goes back before 1960 and was distributed by a Mary Williamson. Later Superstition listed it, and still does. That's where I got mine. They call it an MTB, but when Phil Edinger (historic iris 'guru' registered it, he registered it as a BB. I consider it to be an MTB. It might also be considered an IB but not a BB. The flowers are too small for a BB. It could be the BB is a typo. How it got its name, I do not know. I have won 'best historic' in our show twice with Drady. Once I thought they were also going to make it Queen.

The information above came from the 1999 Iris Check List and the rest from the Superstition catalog and my memory/experience with Drady.

Yes, I grow it but took a lot of it to our sale as a freebie last year. You can still get it this year from Superstition. If you have an order with them, add on to it. Superstition has tons of what they say are the 'better historics.'

There is a picture of Drady on the HIPS site.

Walter Moores

Walter, Thanks for the info. I do have an order pending with Superstition and I will see if I can add Drady. Lee Mincy

I have just seen and fell for Circus Stripes. I want it in my garden....help anyone?
Sis

I have just seen EleanorRoosevelt. I want it in my garden also. She's a beauty. Any suggestions where to buy her.
Thank you............... Love this forum.
Dea

Superstition has it in their 2006 listing and I am sure many others also. Superstition is hard to beat for a combination of price, quality and service. Lee Mincy

Favorite historic iris? That is very very hard for me to decide, plus it changes all the time.
Today the favorites are
EL DORADO
SAMBUCINA
JACQUESIANA
WABASH
BRYCE CANYON
COPPER FRILLS

Laetitia

Laetitia, I have ended up with 11 clumps of what I think is Sambucina. I got it from 3 sources but only thought one of them was going to be Sambucina. Mine looks like the photos I have seen. Mine has PBF and is very late blooming. Sambucina and Shah Jehan are my last two iris to bloom in mass. I have a few others that are blooming again but these two are just past peak right now. Lee Mincy

I am a proud owner of Shah Jehan and it is my favorite historic iris, since it is my only historic iris, at the present. This is a special plant to me because it was planted and growing at the house we moved into when I was 13 years old. The person who had owned the house previously was an older woman who was quite a gardener. There were butterfly bushes planted all along the front of the house,and in bed in the back yard, 2 or 3 different irises, Shah Jehan being one of them, a reblooming mock orange, a flowering almond, roses, and peonies. Now that I am a gardener too, I look back fondly on all the time and effort that person took with her plantings. Fortunately, I still have the SJ iris, and am going to take cuttings of the mock orange this year. I can also get some of the peonies from my parents, who still live there.

Linda

Shah Jehan to me is an iris that shows up best in a mass planting. I have hundreds of these that came from my grandmother's iris that were first left to grow wild in 1966. My aunt rescued what was still around about 1974 and planted them in a well prepared bed at her new home and left them to grow wild again until 2003 when I started reclaiming what was left. In the last 3 years I have moved several hundred of these and way more than 50% have been Shah Jehan. I thought that was what it was and I sent a photo to Mike and he thinks it is also(I did not tell him in advance what I thought it was). So until I convince myself it is something else it will be Shah Jehan. I have a few hundred of these growing in various iris plots. I also have saved a large number of Wabash and Quaker Lady. I have at least 6 other unknowns in this group with one having only one example so far and another just 2(maybe Rosy Wings). I still have about 35% of these that have not bloomed so I may have more surprises. Lee Mincy

I'm torn. I love Wabash, but I also love Dotted Swiss. I am also very, very partial to plain ol' Iris pallida--NOT the variegated-foliage ones!

I also have a weakness for any MTB, historic or otherwise. They are just charming!

Lisa

One of my favourites is 'Honorabile'. In a mass planting, this charming little iris really makes a statement! And Wabash, of course, is on the list!

We have two old diploids on the farm from long ago. One is a light violet, almost a lavender pink. The other is a pale blue. The blue one smells like grapes and we have been told it is Princess Beatrice. It grows like a house afire, never dies out too much in the middle, survives neglect, pets, lack of water etc. and just blooms it head off every year.

I also have or did have Limelight, a pale yellow one with a slight greenish tint. Very nice and likely a diploid. At least I think those with smaller, narrow flowers, slender stalks and papery bud sheathes are diploids.

Ann in Montana

My favourite is the one I found in a garden behind an old building last Spring. The closest I can come for a match is the HIPS photo of Rameses, and I am hoping it proves to be this. I need to do some research and decide whether rameses is likely to have been introduced to Australia.
Will get photos if it blooms this Spring. I have planted 5 rhizomes in my garden.
After that, Wabash and Sable Night, also Helen Collingwood.

Oh, I 'forgot' about SHAH JEHAN! Has to be a favorite with its rich undescribable coloring. And its a very late bloomer, extending the season too.
Now, for those that grow the SHAH, what color would you call the falls?
Oh, and I really love AMBASSADEUR too (got to put that on the 'historic' favorite list). It also has an undescribable color. Was the most popular iris in the 20's according to polls, but not too many grow it today.
Laetitia

I've finally got an answer to this question! I've got a couple dozen historics (so far). My last iris to bloom was 'Striped Butterfly,' and it's hands-down my favorite historic. It's just a gorgeous flower, pale blue-grey with dark blue veins, a yellow beard, and a diamond-dust glow all over.

Laurel

Easter Bonnet grabbed my heart this year, but I can't not mention Stepping Out in a large clump.... Absolutely beautiful!
heidi

Laurelin:
Glad you got the REAL STRIPED BUTTERFLY. Something has been circulating around lately under that name and its not right! Got muddy looking falls and only a few haft stripes.
Laetitia

I like "Velvet Dusk," "Indian Chief," and "Princess Beatrice."

Laetitia,
I think I got 'Striped Butterfly' from Iris City Gardens. It's just lovely. I also liked seeing 'Solid Mahogany' and 'Indian Chief' in full bloom, but SB stole the show.

Laurel

MARY FRANCES -lavendar blue self Gaulter 1971

MOONLIT SEA, J. Sass, 1942

Love this thread -- Give me the historics anyday!

Indian Chief
Amigo
Shah Jehan
Tropical Butterfly

In fact, just put in an order with Iris City for a bunch of historics yesterday.

i would be so grateful of anyone knows what the name of the iris is that i am seeking and where i can buy some.
My dear mother n law who has been gone for some time now used to have an iris growing in her yard and gave me some years ago.it was purple, and smelled like grapes.. very delicious.. i mean to say.. very much like grapes!!
yum..
i would do anything to find it again .. Halp!!
please email me with any ideas.. and thank you for the bottom of my heart :)