With all the various bloom times (nocturnal, early morning openers, cold morning openers, late bloomers, etc) I also seem to find that a cultivar's pollen ripens along with the bloom.

Am I imagining things, or is the fluffy dry pollen from my diurnal, in deep shade no less, peaking earlier than the still-mostly-closed anthers on the diurnal in my full-sun beds, even though I am gathering pollen from them at the same time in the morning?

And, if so, should I already be pollinating the one that I took fluffy dry pollen from, even though it may only be 55 degrees outside?

I find that here the pollen ripens when it wants to. This morning all the flowers were wide open but the anthers had not opened on the ones in the shade and the ones I wanted to use I picked the bloom and stuck in the sun to open. Sometimes though there will be the ones that open readily in the shade and then there are others that it depends on the temps and won't open when it's too cool until the sun has warmed it up good. But most of the time our blooms are fully open before the anthers open.

Is it really 55 degrees in your zone 9b? Here we have cool 55s and warm 55s. It is so weird how our weather is, sometimes at 55 it will be colder than a day that was 45 degrees. I imagine it has to do with the humidity but it is still weird. Anyway I would think that it doesn't really matter when you pollinate (or at what temp) because the pistil will be ready whenever it is ready and if the pollen is already there on the pistil then it will save you time going back to pollinate it.

Yes, overnights still in the 50s and low 60s with daily highs in the high 80s and up into 90s (heading back into triple digits in 48 hours). We often have jumps in morning temps of fifteen degrees per hour. And DH and I both commented that we were having a fairly rare morning with a little humidity. Though this one cultivar has seemed ready-to-over-ready, and fully open in the shade for each bloom, regardless of temps or times, so hearing about your experience is quite helpful.

As always, many thanks for helping me to frame it in a larger picture and gain some confidence about proceeding. You just made me realize I could also track whether it is setting pods any differently depending on when I pollinate ... your experience is "good coffee" for my sleepy-head this morning!