My grandmother, Ruth Roberts, introduced me to iris but frankly the earliest memories were in the 1980's.  I remember purchasing iris for her Christmas presents in the 1980's and started acquiring some for my wife and me during that same time frame.  We collected a few here and there and began expanding garden space to handle them but the serious addiction probably didn't start until I started trying my hand at hybridizing in 2017. 

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When I retired from Oklahoma State University as the Director of Risk And Property Management in 2018, the iris bug kinda got out of hand and I quickly increased the number of gardens and varieties.  In 2020 we started opening our gardens to the public for free tours since there wasn't much for folks to do during COVID.  

 

In 2024 our named varieties have increased to around 1,000.  The gardens were featured on Oklahoma Gardening in 2024 and can be seen on the Oklahoma Gardening YouTube site.  (Button below)