More images of Cayeux introductions.

Paillasse



Seraphita



Bleu de Gien

Feu Follet



Margrave



Poil de Carotte

Provencal



Neige de Mai

Here are some courtesy of Loic Tasquier.

As de Coeur



Danse de Feu



Petit Tigre

Muddymitts said:Just absolutely lovely!! ...Thank you for taking the time to post these Greg.

I agree with Mary Ann. Thank you, Greg.

Roger Renard

Lovely colors. They are smart to want the publicity. I can't remember if the nursery has been active for 3 or 4 generations.

Ohhhhhhhhhh -- I LOVE Margrave!!!

I got curious about Cayeux today too, after seeing one of his beauties, checking the database and being struck dumb that it had never been awarded anything. So then I queried the database for all TBs hybridized by Cayeux. Plenty of them registered, but then filtered that for their Awards of Merit. Amazingly there have been none for Cayeux since 1938. Apparently though the Cayeux family has continued to hybridize beautiful irises, which you can see by their web site and these gorgeous photos, they have not been promoting them in the US, beyond registering them. What a shame! In order to win awards and come to peoples' attention here in the states, they must be grown in U.S. test gardens. Apparently the Cayeux family has not been coming over here to do that. I know that finally there is to be an international competition at the convention in 2020 or 2021 and I certainly plan to make a trip there to see it, despite my age. (I'll crawl if I have to.) I hope that the Cayeux family will finally have a presence there, because I'd really like to see some of these beauties in person!

Barry Blyth doesn't make the U.S. awards lists - although I may have missed some - and he was, and is, one of the greatest hybridizers.
I've been impressed by the beauty of the Russian/Ukrainian irises. Makes me wonder how they get such big, luxuriant blooms. Is it the soil?

That' s not exactly correct. Blyth's Decadence won:
Honorable Mention: 2006
Award of Merit: 2008
John C. Wister Medal: 2010
Fred and Barbara Walther Cup: 2006. And it is now #13 on this year's TBS popularity poll.

By contrast Cayeux, despite all these beauties pictured above, has not one iris in the top 100 of the popularity poll, and has not even won an honorable mention on a TB iris since one in 1935. Blyth is being recognized, but clearly Cayeux is not even in the running for awards and notice in the U.S. It's a shame.

For example, look at this beauty: https://www.iris-cayeux.com/fr... . You can search their web site for their own introductions, and come up with pages and pages of lovelies. For example I think this one is far more beautiful than any of ours in the yellow range: https://www.iris-cayeux.com/fr... . Love that form and edge ruffles!

Irises are only eligible for American Iris Society awards if they are originally introduced in North America.

Many Cayeux irises make their way to North America, but not surprisingly, they are introduced in France. I don't know if the French have their own award system or not, although it appears not. They have their own version of the Dykes Medal, but haven't awarded it since the 1930's.

Decadence won AIS awards because it was originally introduced in the spring of 2004 by Keith Keppel in Oregon, then by Tempo Two later that year. Keith introduced a number of Barry's irises over the years. Decadence might have won the American Dykes Medal, but there's an additional requirement for that, the iris must be hybridized in North America as well.

Kent, thanks for that info. I kind of wish that our award rules could be changed to make them international in scope.

DaisyDo said:Kent, thanks for that info. I kind of wish that our award rules could be changed to make them international in scope.

Maybe if the rules were changed, we would get to see more Cayeux irises and others available in the US.