Oh Evan.......I love that dance and music.

Blue Twilight Moon

Oriental Eyes. This is how my camera records "purples" in sun and shade. In sun is pretty accurate.

Beautiful!

BTM was a bonus when I bought OE and some sibs from Snowpeak last year. Thanks Dee.

Polly--we don't grow JI but I see them on our rounds.

Beautiful JI's Color is great.

Connie, A little late but I really like your Freckled Geisha seedlings. #1 in particular. Looks like it stands out close up and from a distance. I also like the pod parent and #2 though. Do you have a favorite? Does one look to be more vigorous than another?

Evan, I just edited out the photo of seedling #1 because it was a repost of its pod parent right above it. See I told you they looked alike, I was tricked! And working way to late for doing cognitive posting!

Personally I like seedling #2 best with the narrower band and it is a bit more frilly. I don't see any difference in vigor at this point in time. But I don't consider these any better than what is out there already. So for me it is a dead end working with my original seedling. Lots of other JIs to play around with though .

I always enjoy reading critiques by those with experience, especially regarding their own work. What I like about #1 is the wider banding resulting in that well defined white ground. It looks like the inner (upper?) falls have a slightly narrower ground? I also checked out Freckled Geisha. I found this pic at Heronswood of a really stunning bloom. http://www.heronswood.com/shop... A lot of other photos out there show a huge variation in banding and freckling and imho a much less refined look. , http://www.google.com/search?q....

Is FG really that variable?
A few tech questions. Is there a proper term for the standards turned to falls? For freckling?

The correct Freckled Geisha has a narrow edge and as described in the JI register "delicately sprinkled with mauve to wine freckles". I no longer have FG, it has been gone for years so it is hard to verify exactly how it looks. But it doesn't have a wide band, I can say that. Its children had bands of all widths.

I think the term for standards turned to falls is just six falls, I haven't come across anything more technical. When I get some time I will write up a little thing about all the different patterns in Japanese irises.

Thsnks for the info. Connie. Looking forward to the write up.

I just noticed that all but one stalk on Oriental Eyes have 2 branches. Still budding and blooming. Lion King, Crystal Halo, Blue Twilight Moon and Moonlight Waves usually have one branch and Silverband has it's first branched stalk in three years. I like the way it extends the bloom time.

I imagine culture affects this? Does vagary as well. Why is this not addressed in hybridizers descriptions? Should we track it somehow?

Look at Chad Harris's site. He lists the branches and buds on all he offers and bases the counts on three year old plants and grown to the best of his ability, which I would expect to be best practices. Read the second paragraph at the top of the page.

http://www.mtpleasantiris.com/...

Thanks Connie. What a great way to describe bloom.

Dirigo Red Rocket, first pic day1, others day 2.

That's very pretty Evan.

The middle bloom has 6 styles. It's the only one like that I remember. Is this some with 3, some with 6 common among 6 fall JI.

That is gorgeous!! The first picture is a stunner.

Yes, Evan, and sometimes they're so fluffy it's hard to count them.

Thanks Susan. OE is just now wrapping it up for the year.

Edit: I'll have to pay more attention in future Polly