Nooooo. Have him grow iris in pots. Iris don't break and flood the floor. Iris don't float to the top. Iris can take heat AND cold!! Iris don't need filters. But best of all. iris smell nice!! There is a reason why you don't see fish tanks in older peoples homes but you will see gardens in the yard.

I notice that it states in the descriptions of iris here "Will not come true from seed". So multiplication comes solely from increases. It's no wonder that intros cost what they do.

We have a local chapter of the American Iris Society not 2 miles from where we live. Problem is they meet from 7-9 PM. What are old people doing up at that hour!! But my guess is there is a whole host of combined knowledge there so I had better join.


Se what you started Gabriel. Think about this for a minute. You are 34 years old. If you spent the next 5 or so years contacting some of these folks that are up there in years before they retire, think what you could learn.

Blessings to you.

John, go, join, get home late, sleep late the next morning or take a nap. smiles

yadah_tyger said:Nooooo. Have him grow iris in pots. Iris don't break and flood the floor. Iris don't float to the top. Iris can take heat AND cold!! Iris don't need filters. But best of all. iris smell nice!! There is a reason why you don't see fish tanks in older peoples homes but you will see gardens in the yard.

I got a good chuckle out of that too.

But you see cats which are work.

...Which brings me to another question(s).
Are there ways to get faster increases minus fertilizers? I know you can cut, break or split a rhizome. I've only split from mothers' so I don't really know if cutting segments means your going to get increases to just "pop-up" from the new cutlings. Obviously some just increase better given the right conditions...

How do these commercial farms produce so many? is it just father time, fertilizing, soil, and mass division?

I swear i look this stuff up, but the Google gods truly don't have every detail, especially with mass production.

I know how to beef mines up, so spare the 6-10-10 talk and the alpha pellet use...unless that's the only secret, if one for the matter.

Gabe - since you have increased the number of iris you have greatly in just the last two months it is surprising you want to increase them even more. You surely have more pots than me! But at this time of year I would let them spend some time just growing or you won't have any developed enough to bloom in the spring. To that same point, it is a blessing if you don't have any trying for re-bloom right now as the blooms are likely to freeze. Better that the rhizomes just continue to gather energy for spring bloom time. It is sad to see an iris put up a bud that freezes now then gives you no spring bloom.

I just came from a garden club Christmas party. I was one of the youngest folks there. These old people were up at 9. I was also surprised at the fine selection of wine and cans of mixed drinks. They are an active bunch.

I don't want anymore yet..I just wondered. **this isn't gonna sound right**I hope my rebloomers don't bloom, but they're getting hard or solid in the middle of some. I haven't seen any sign of a bud stalk, but hopefully it's just gaining increases under the leaves or producing next seasons leaves underneath

Reliving the 60's

John.. I do study the plants and spend a lot of time going through the new catalogs as they come out it's fun to see what the new introductions are and what made them.They also will give you some insight on what plants are working for them Barry Blyth's catalog has a section devoted to seedlings and what's coming from him as well as in the plant descriptions he a lot of times will tell you if the plant is fertile or will set pods.

I am not much help when it comes to the technical side of genes and what colors are recessive etc...The good majority of the newer plants I am crossing together are from a handful of hybridizers and if you read the pedigrees most are a paragraph long and involve many years of crossing different seedlings together until they get what they want. I am taking there newest plants offered that I have and mixing them together hoping to pull out different colors and patterns while adding ruffles to favorites in my garden. Hope this helps with what I'm looking for

Crossing the best with the best or a favorite with the best is really working like magic for you Brad.

Ay-yup, tis.

Mass production is done with compost & yearly division. After analyzing a clump, then it can be ignored as a flower & just produced.

Question(s):
What are the effects, if any of pollinating more than one bloom on a pod parent plant?

Is it possible OR do people practice having two separate pollen parents pollinate one pod parent plant on different blooms or stalks? Is there some kind of genetic negative adversity to this?

Gabriel - You are asking the same questions I was thinking of. Something like (pollen 1& pollen 2) x Pod 1. Since there are 3 points of pollinating on each flower, could you use pollen from 3 different flowers?

Another question. If someone were to cross known 1 x known 2 will they get the same results as the previous cross of those 2 knowns. ie; High Emotion x Louisa's Song and still expect Rags to Riches?

Gabriel, do you mean pollinate several blooms on one stalk with different pollens? That may put undue stress on the rhizome to produce that many pods. I think I would limit it to one bloom per stalk, but several in the same clump should be okay I think.

John, while one could pollinate a single bloom with pollen from multiple doners, you wouldn't know the parentage of any seedlings that you liked. Crossing the same 2 that have resulted in a previously introduced variety won't produce that variety again.

There are so many genes available that you can get different results each time.
I usually to the several flowers on a stem, let the rest of the flowers be enjoyed on the other stems.

Gabriel.. The affects are good.. I set multiple pods on stalks all the time the (Just Witchery) crosses that everyone liked was only done with 1bloom stalk from it. I got 5 flowers from it that year 3 were used to set pods and the other 2 I put pollen on other plants so yes by all means use what blooms and I agree with Neal you could use pollen from different plants on 1 cross but you would never no which one fertilized the pod.. better to just use 1 so you can keep track of parents.

John.. You could repeat any cross you want but you will never get the same results as some one else's but you may get something even better

Thanks for the great and informative answers, they help a lot. I think Gabriel and I are on the beginning of the learning curve.

Would it be true to say that if one uses the latest works of other folks what does carry forward is patterns and form and not necessarily color? What I mean by that is halos on falls started to appear sometime after 2000 or so. Now there are some very pronounced halos on the falls of the newer generations. Also, this same effect started to appear on the standards to where now they also are quite pronounced. To me it seems the best way to take advantage of previous efforts.

Brad - You sure do get some very interesting results. Would like to see a few of them reach the market.

Blessings