Special Offer to Our New Customers 
$1 IRIS FREE WITH YOUR FIRST ORDER 
We want you for our customer! If you will send us that first order 
we are confident that you will buy from us regularly, and tell your 
friends about us too. 
So, if you have not tried Edenwald plants, send us at least a $3.00 
order, not including Collections, and we will add, as a free extra, one 
of the following $1.00 irises: Alona, Blue Shimmer, Dark Mood, 
Elmohr, Ola Kala, Solid Mahogany. 
Should your order consist of daylilies, you may wish to receive one 
of the following daylilies instead: Coralline, Matador, Minuet, Persian 
Princess, Regal Lady, War Path. 
Please state your preference and remember—your order must be 
not less than $3.00 not counting Collections. The latter are too heav- 
ily discounted to qualify for any additional premium. 
_If your first order amounts to $10.00 or more, exclusive of Collec- 
Hons, you may select two of the gift plants listed above. 
Special Offer to Former Customers 
It has been our custom to include free extra plants with orders 
both as a token of our appreciation and to make sure the customer 
receives full and generous value. If the variety so included is already 
among the customer’s collection the gift is pointless and disappoint- 
ing to both customer and ourselves. For this reason we prefer to 
privilege the customer to select extras of his own choice in the amount 
of ten percent of the order (ten cents for each dollar ordered), collec- 
tions excluded. New customers may avail themselves of this offer in- 
stead of the free iris offered at left, if preferred, but not both. 
Group Prices for 3 Plants of the Same Name 
Price per Plant 3 Plants Price per Plant 3 Plants 
$0.40 $1.00 $1.00 $2.50 
50 125) 1.50 wl 
60 1.50 2.00 5.00 
Ts) 2.00 2.50 6.25 
ee ee ere ee ele ee a ih ee eee ere 
—or———xvwxw—w—wwwnaoO9;nmnmayemqTumpoaoOoOD0DRTlTyDOSo 
Flower friends, far and near, 
Flower friends. old and new, 
The plants we send are those 
We'd like to get, if we were you. 
EDENW ALD CREED 
If you are receiving our catalog for the first time, we’d like you to 
know, first off, that the above verse expresses very simply, but hon- 
estly, our golden rule of conduct toward our customers. You will find 
this, our twelfth annual catalog, literally crowded with descriptions 
of the most popular and most excellent varieties of irises and day- 
lilies. We hope that you will detect in it also, a hint of the sincerity, 
the spirit of friendliness and the earnest desire to please, that governs 
our relations with our customers. 
WHY IRISES AND DAYLILIES? 
We specialize in these lovely flowers because we think they are the 
most rewarding flowering plants in existence, because we sincerely 
believe that they will bring you more beauty, interest and enjoyment 
than any flower you could put in your garden. 
The tall-bearded iris is, we think, the most fascinating flower in 
the world. No other can approach it in color range. It is one of the 
few genera that has both the blue and the yellow tones. From pure 
white to as near black as a flower can be, the iris color range includes 
a bewildering array of shades and tints in pink, red, purple, tan, 
brown, blends and bicolors in endless variety, plus also delightful 
variations in form and fragrance. 
Amplifying and extending the season of iris bloom, are the curtain- 
raising dwarf and intermediate bearded varieties on the one hand 
and the charming and gorgeous beardless varieties on the other, 
All have their special appeal and attraction. 
The daylily, a perfect companion for the iris because its blooming 
season occurs later, is now the subject of enthusiastic hybridization 
by plant breeders that will long insure to it the status we have often 
predicted, that of the most important summer perennial. 
Both of these flowers have the size and stature suited to bold em- 
bodiment in the landscape picture, or can be had in varieties of such 
delicacy and charm as to grace the most epicurean garden. Both 
require only the simplest culture and both increase in beauty and in 
numbers each year if their simple cultural needs are met. 
POPULARITY POLLS—MEANING OF “fspe”’ 
The popularity poll of daylilies on page 30, is the result of voting 
by accredited judges of The Hemerocallis Society. Also, included with 
the descriptions, are indicated the irises that were selected for in- 
clusion in the 100 BEST, according to four different viewpoints. 
These selections are designated by one or more of the small-case 
letters “f s p e”, following the description. At this point we wish to 
acknowledge our indebtedness to Mrs. Elizabeth Nesmith, of Fair- 
mount Gardens, Lowell, Mass., and to Mr. Robert Schreiner, of 
Schreiner’s Gardens, Salem, Ore., for again permitting us to indicate 
the selections of these world-famous experts in our catalog. The 
letter “f” stands for Fairmount, “s” for Schreiner. The letter “p” 
indicates the result of the 1952 Symposium of the American Iris 
Society, in which about one-fourth (1112) of the members participated 
by voting for their “100 Favorite Iris.” This was a departure from 
former Symposiums in which only accredited judges voted. The letter 
“e” designates Edenwald selections. 
Page 2 
IT ISN’T EASY! 
We're sure our collaborators will agree that it isn’t easy to make a 
clear-cut decision on the 100 Best Irises. Nor would it be easy to select 
the 100 loveliest bathing beauties, or the 100 best football players, 
or the 100 best anything else. One gets into an area of “equal merit” 
where it is difficult to choose. We think, too, that the selections can 
be influenced by personal preferences, lack of acquaintance with com- 
peting varieties, regional differences in growing conditions and the 
human tendency to “follow the crowd.” 
50 CENTS OR 50 DOLLARS? 
Is a ten-dollar flower ten times as valuable as a one-dollar one? 
That's the question that sometimes intrigues beginners. For some 
buyers the answer is yes. Price differences, however, are chiefly due 
to scarcity. They stem from the fact that these flowers are propagated 
by natural division, as contrasted with other plants, such as roses, 
that can be multiplied by the thousands by the simple process of 
“budding”, or say dahlias, which can be multiplied by root cuttings. 
It is common practice for iris or daylily introductions to be offered 
while the total number of plants in existence is relatively small. Every- 
thing comes to him who waits, however, and the fifty-dollar plant of 
today becomes the fifty-cent plant of tomorrow. (You can’t wait? 
Well sir, Mrs. Cantwait, we compiled this catalog just for you!) 
IS THERE A DIFFERENCE IN PLANTS? 
Sure is! Not only in size but in important ways not visible. The 
true measure of plant quality lies in how it performs in your garden. 
Plants are complex organisms that not even learned scientists thor- 
oughly understand. How do plants manufacture chorophyll? Chem- 
ists don’t know but plants are doing it all the time. (We guarantee 
our plants to contain genuine aged-in-the-wood chlorophyll.) Geneti- 
cists know what chromosomes are and what they do, but they don’t 
know how they do it. Experimenters know that blooming tendencies 
are often tied in with both temperatures and the length of the day. 
Wheat grains can look exactly alike and yet vary in food value and 
in baking quality. Some potatoes cook white and mealy, others dark 
and soggy. Customers keep telling us how well our plants do in their 
gardens. But don’t ask us why our plants are superior. All we know 
is what we read in our “love letters.” 
YOU ARE INVITED 
You are always cordially welcome to visit Edenwald Gardens during 
the blooming period or at any other time. Tall bearded iris bloom 
is normally at its height about May 20th, Japanese iris about June 
12th and daylilies the first half of July. Our location is 2 miles north 
of Vincennes city limits on Indiana 67, one mile north of its junc- 
ture with U. S. 41. 
Thanking you for your patronage, your kindness in recommending 
us to others, and for the many “love letters” you wrote us, we remain, 
Sincerely yours. 
EDITH and WALTER BUSS. 
“Ede & Walt” 
