How Does Your Garden Grow: Iris
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An episode of John Nash Ott's weekly television program How Does Your Garden Grow?, focusing on growing irises. How Does Your Garden Grow? first aired in 1951 on the Chicago television station WNBQ (channel 5), and expanded to the NBC network where it continued to air until 1956.
Credits
John Nash Ott Jr. (filmmaker); John Nash Ott Jr. (narrator); John Nash Ott Jr. (host); David F. Hall (participant); Orville W. Fay (participant); Charles Reckamp (participant)
Complete catalog record
Date: circa 1953
Cfa collection: John Nash Ott Collection
Notes: Host John Ott greets the audience from his home studio and introduces the day’s topic, the Iris. He compares two Good and Plenty Irises to each other, and follows with extended time-lapse footage of growing irises with special narrative attention given to a Spurious Iris and a Japanese Iris.; The scene then shifts to the garden of hybridizer David Hall, and then to the backyard of Orville Fay, who demonstrates the process of hybridization, with an in-depth look at stamen transfer, seed pod removal, seed storage, and planting. A subsequent time-lapse sequence shows the Dwarf Iris grow, followed by footage of several iris borers paired with narrated instruction for their extermination.; The scene transitions to a brief glimpse of hybridizer Brother Charles working in a garden, and then to time-lapse footage of peonies and roses as they grow. The episode concludes back in Ott’s home studio with a demonstration of how to divide iris rhizomes. The episode features footage of three famed Chicagoland iris breeders: David Hall of Wilmette, credited with introducing pink into iris strains; Orville Fay of Northbrook, creator of the red-bearded white Arctic Flame Iris and chemist who experimented with colors in a candy factory; and Brother Charles Reckamp of Techny, credited with creating Techny Chimes and Celestial Snow Irises, as well as developing a ruffled pattern on a flower’s edges.
Sponsor: John Ott Pictures, Inc.
Subjects: Gardens; Flowers; Time; Plants
Places: North America > United States > Illinois > Winnetka
Language: English
Cfa elements: 815 feet
Cfa records: https://collections.chicagofilmarchives.org/Detail/objects/36484
Cfa collection: John Nash Ott Collection
Notes: Host John Ott greets the audience from his home studio and introduces the day’s topic, the Iris. He compares two Good and Plenty Irises to each other, and follows with extended time-lapse footage of growing irises with special narrative attention given to a Spurious Iris and a Japanese Iris.; The scene then shifts to the garden of hybridizer David Hall, and then to the backyard of Orville Fay, who demonstrates the process of hybridization, with an in-depth look at stamen transfer, seed pod removal, seed storage, and planting. A subsequent time-lapse sequence shows the Dwarf Iris grow, followed by footage of several iris borers paired with narrated instruction for their extermination.; The scene transitions to a brief glimpse of hybridizer Brother Charles working in a garden, and then to time-lapse footage of peonies and roses as they grow. The episode concludes back in Ott’s home studio with a demonstration of how to divide iris rhizomes. The episode features footage of three famed Chicagoland iris breeders: David Hall of Wilmette, credited with introducing pink into iris strains; Orville Fay of Northbrook, creator of the red-bearded white Arctic Flame Iris and chemist who experimented with colors in a candy factory; and Brother Charles Reckamp of Techny, credited with creating Techny Chimes and Celestial Snow Irises, as well as developing a ruffled pattern on a flower’s edges.
Sponsor: John Ott Pictures, Inc.
Subjects: Gardens; Flowers; Time; Plants
Places: North America > United States > Illinois > Winnetka
Language: English
Cfa elements: 815 feet
Cfa records: https://collections.chicagofilmarchives.org/Detail/objects/36484
Sources
- Chicago Film Archives · record ↗ — title, year, creator, length, format, color, sound, genre, description, credits, catalog record, video
Record added 2026-11-08 21:25:25