Albuquerque and Aril Iris Society (AAIS) shows is held on 23 April, 2023 and will have many arilbreds on sale.

finished up 2022 on a positive note.  Throughout the year we lost 13 members, but we also gained a total of 18 members which includes one individual who has renewed her membership.  Our new members have come from not only our club website (Albuquerquearilandirissociety.com), our Facebook site (ABQ Aril and Iris), our Iris Shows and our rhizome sales, the Garden Center’s referrals but also from our members.

Last September, we held our annual club membership iris plant drawing in Eva’s backyard.  Since AAIS had purchased iris from Mid America for the Region 23 convention, we were to host in 2020, Eva kept growing them in her yard. In 2021 she divided the plants and split them between the club’s membership iris drawing and the 2022 convention give away to registered attendees.

Our Spring Iris show was nearly cancelled due to what seemed to be a lack of people entering the show due to the last freeze and later than usual bloom. When talking with one of our regular people who brings her beautiful iris to our shows every year, I mentioned the probability of cancelling our show.  She made a couple phone calls and found people and iris for the show.  Pete McGrath was one of those individuals who blessed us with several of his Aril and Arilbred seedlings as well as several other introduced iris he had hybridized.  His addition to our show was a real treat for everyone to see.  Although it was a smaller show than we have had in the past, we were able to sign up 6 new members to join our club, 5 of which qualified for the free 1-year membership to AIS.

As part of the American Society’s 101^st National Convention in Las Cruces, NM, AAIS was selected to host the convention garden tour at Blue J Iris gardens.  We had several members who baked cookies, muffins, and donated other prepackaged snacks for the people who came to the garden as part of the bus tours.  Rae Phillips and Beth Schneider manned the refreshment table for the morning and/or afternoon tours.  Candy Scott made special iris shaped chocolate suckers in 4 different flavors, and they went like wildfire. 

Our annual rhizome sale was held on July 16^th.  Unfortunately, we only had 5 members who dug and divided their iris.  Eva and Candy also brought potted iris from their yards for the sale.  In addition, Rae and Eva went to a home of a lady in NE Albuquerque and dug up all her unknown iris and wanted to donate them to AAIS where they would find great homes with good sunshine and care to grow and another 2 other non-AAIS members who brought rhizomes from their yard for the sale.  We were able to offer the public half of the amount of iris and plants we had for our sale in 2021.  When we opened the doors at 9 am, we had approximately 60 people waiting.  People started gathering at 8 am and very eager to buy iris for their yards.  We sold out of all the rhizomes, including all the unknowns by 10 am (1 hour after we opened) and the last of the potted iris Candy brought for the sale before 10:30 am. 

Some of our members are planning to go to Las Cruces August 11, 12, and/or 13 to help dig iris from the host gardens from the AIS Convention.  Members helping with the digging of the iris as well as the earlier planting of the rhizomes and helping in many other areas will have their choice from several of the different iris grown in appreciation of their help.  The remaining iris dug are being shared with each of the 5 affiliate clubs.  Each club will then be able to decide how they want to distribute the rhizomes received from MVIS and the host gardens.

AAIS  maintains an iris display garden at the Albuquerque Garden Center off of Lomas Boulevard.  The sales from the shows are used to support the iris display garden.  On April 27-30 2008, AAIS hosted an Aril and Median Trek, where people from all over the country came and viewed Arils and Arilbred irises.  The iris display garden was on the tour.  There were two judges training sessions.

We meet at the Albuquerque Garden Center for four regular meetings in February, March, June, and September annually.  Our shows and rhizome sales are also held at the Garden Center, and we have a fifth meeting at a member’s home in April on how to prepare iris entries for the show. Our September meeting is our Rhizome Raffle, where a club order, recently from Superstition Gardens, is raffled off for $5 a ticket, with every ticket holder guaranteed a potted recently-introduced iris.  Eva Barry potted the club order. Elections are also held a at our September meeting. 

AAIS has a holiday party in December where we have an awards program, installation of officers and white-elephant gift exchange.  There is lots of laughs and lots of gift-snitching.