Tall Bearded Iris 'Tomeco'

Tall Bearded Iris 'Tomeco'
Iris

I love this iris! Is it still available anywhere?

Hi there! Mine came from Bluebird Haven and they do still list it. Try making contact through: http://www.bluebirdhavenirisgarden.com/. Good luck - it's a really great iris. Shelly aka puttytat

My grandmother, Mary Melvina Suiter, was the hybridizer of this iris, as well as many others. During the time that she was an iris hybridizer, she was well known around the world.

Linda, I love hearing from relatives of hybridizers of the historics. Many of my older iris still outperform the more modern cultivars. Tomeco - in a crowded bed with little attention - still manages to bloom periodically although it has no space to increase properly. (We've been looking for a place with more land.) There are 3 Suiter iris on my wishlist: December Bride, Heart Song and Verdite. If you know of anyone who grows them, I'd love to purchase or perhaps trade. Thanks! Shelly

Shelly, do you happen to have pictures of these iris? I've just started doing some research on my Grandmother's iris and have found pictures only of Tomeco. Yesterday, while doing research, I came across this site, entered "Suiter" into the search engine and came up with: http://iris.onrussell.com/registrydetailh.asp?name=Suiter&B1=Submit

Perhaps you are already familiar with this site. Many of the iris listed are ones I'm familiar with (by name, if not by sight). One thing that did surprise me, though, was the number of iris my Grandmother hybridized and registered in the late 1980's...I hadn't realized she was doing hybridizing as late as that. Unfortunately, there are no links to pictures...do you happen to know of one?

One of my aunts has many of my Grandmother's irises...I'll ask her which ones. She's going to be dividing them later this summer, and I've asked her to let me know when so that I can come get some for planting in the flower beds of our newly-bought house (we've been fulltime RVers since 1998, so haven't had any place to plant them until now). If she has any of the 3 you mentioned, I'll post here.

I wish I did have photos! Alas, I found the names in the regular AIS checklists and selected them for being bred by someone whose name I recognized from an iris already doing well in the garden (my wishlist is v-e-r-y long!). I have consecutive Schreiner & Cooley catalogs back to 1980 and a few earlier - but these 3 were not offered at least from1980 forward.

I was not aware of the iris registry you found but it will be an extremely useful ink - Thanks! Could you add Wicked Witch to those to inquire about? Can't resist the name on that one.

Were you able to get Tomeco from Bluebird Haven? If we find our acreage this summer, I plan to order 100+ from Mary next spring. And then my Tomeco will have the space it deserves to produce a healthy clump and not just a stalk or two.

Are you from Virginia that you settled there now? Only been through parts of the state heading elsewhere but I remember the scenery was beautiful (it was fall).

No, we're living in Spokane, WA...I put the town and state in my profile, but it's not showing up underneath my screen name. Maybe there's someplace else I should be putting it?

I have not ordered any flowers yet...wanted to wait until I found out what my aunt has. Unfortunately, I just got an email from her and it appears, that while she still has many of my Grandmother's irises, she has not been physically able to get out in the garden and really take care of it, so most of the tags are gone identifying them. She's going to hire someone later this summer to "revitalize" the area...just hope she either hires someone who is familiar with iris, or that she supervises them so that they do the whole replanting process properly. But, of course, since none of the iris have tags, we don't know which ones are which...we may have to wait until they bloom next spring and try to identify them. That will be a huge task because, other than Tomeco, I don't have pictures of any of the iris.

The person from whom we bought our house has a lot of iris planted in various beds around the house...which is really what got me started in trying to track down some of my Grandmother's iris. I have no idea the names of any of the iris here, but some of them are really nice. However, most of the blooming is over with now (still have some blooming...maybe for another couple of weeks or so), so I may wait until next year before I do anything. By that time, the iris at our house will be ready to be thinned and I will identify the ones I want to keep and then get whatever of my Grandmother's iris I can.