We have a friend who produced MTB 'Pee Bee & Jay' did a reverse cross of the parents & got the quite different 'Pixel Packin' Mama'. Many ways to play with the plants. The late Bee Warburton started crossing iris at age 50 & wished she had started at 25. So in your 30s, go for it. I am 80 now & work on a couple dwarf iris projects. Have things I want to try, but would never get them finished, if ever one is finished.

Great point Lucy!

Just don't do what I did this year!

Don't leave your seeds on paper plates drying in the garage and open your garage doors on a windy day. I swept them up and tossed them out. This was my first year trying some crosses.

you list those as "unknown X unknown"

...... and name them names like Guess What, Anyone's Guess, Unk Purple, Pretty Whatever and if you want something more fancy just translate into French. Almost everything sounds good with a French accent.

Good one, Arlyn.


Bonnie

Mais oui Bonnie! C'est vrais!

Hi Gabe.. I would tell you to study the catalogs when they come out for ideas most of them will list the pedigree of the plants so you get a idea of what produced something that you like. I also use the ATP database a lot when planning crosses the neat part about it is when you enter the name of a certain plant into the database it will give you a link at the bottom for the registered kids that it has produced, this is helpful because you can see what it has already produced and look for similarities in them. A example would be (Haunted Heart) its pattern is dominant in it's children meaning if I cross it to something else I would expect quite a few of them should have lines on the falls because that is what it has produced so far. This is the kind of information I'm after when planning crosses I want to see what it has already produced this gives me some ideas of what I may get out of it and may save me a lot of time by doing a little research.

I like the advise Paul gave you when selecting plants to cross.. I follow it myself and I try to use the newest plants possible that grow well for me here because I'm interested in finding new colors and patterns then adding lot's of Ruffles to them. The hardest part of the plant to improve is it's form, there is massive compost piles in Oregon and California filled with Plants with Pretty Faces that I would love to have but they were missing something in the form. What I have found is that when you cross 2 plants that are 20 years old together like (Edith) for a example again you are going to repeat work that has already been done .. our database shows ( Edith Wolford) has produced 116 registered kids and as I scroll down through them quite a few look just like it and have the same form and color pattern which leads me to believe that my results would be similar if I were to make crosses with that plant and there is nothing wrong with that if that's what you like but there are hundred's on the market that look just like it that you could buy for a few bucks that would be a lot less work

I am looking for plants that will give me something different to work with look up Barry Blyth's (Decadence) in our database it has produced 178 kids and none of them look the same or This years Dyke's winner (Gypsy Lord) it has only been on the market since 2006 and has 56 registered kids in a wide variety of colors and they keep coming and getting better every year Hope this helps

I'm drooling over these threads big time. Paul, Brad, Tom, and whoever else hybridizes you all have given me quite the visual display, dedication,mental ethic, preparation and desire needed.
It's back to the mental drawing board for some real evaluation of space, time, and patience for potential success at this.

Thank you everyone for the tags to all these previous threads especially @phillipb2. It means a lot to see your help through here. there's more here than the Google machine easily.

Now it's time to take a break from working at home today and GET SOME MUD ON THESE PAWS!!!

More Dummy questions to come though

Irises for Dummies...I grow irises because I am a dummy and they are about they only thing I know of that are dummy proof!

Jump into the ring, Gabriel. If short on space, you can always do dwarfs (they take up space also, but don't tell.)

Can anyone confirm if this is just normal drying? I brought it inside because I don't trust what's lurking outside.

It's been green for over 2 months going on 3 now..

Looks normal. when was the cross made? Sort of late for still green.

Crossed on 10/1 actually. 2 months to date

It looks normal to me, Gabe. Patience is the watchword here. When you make a cross, harvest the seeds, wait for roots to form, plant and check everyday for tiny green blades to appear......... then wait for 2 to 4 years for a bloom, hoping they survive all the iris perils in this world.... yes, patience is the watchword here. But, there are so many event days in this process that make you do a happy dance. smiles

Patience and disappointment are the words. All the waiting, lining out all the babies, and then seeing some really take off and grow. Others wither and die, or rot off, or blooms a disappointing bloom. All in hopes of getting that one in a thousand really pretty bloom that is different then any others, with really nice branching, growth habits, and bud count. It's what keeps us pulling the handle on the slot machine.

Pod looks good for a 2 month old.

I see someone put a photo of a bearded iris in 'bulbs' for photo contest. Please tell people those are NOT bulbs. Dutch irises are bulbs. Also the little Iris reticulata. A rhizome is a foot storage stem.

Gabriel - With all your posts on crossing I went and watched a video Paul Black did. Looks like fun. So I think I'll give it a try strictly for the fun of it. I'll see how well my fingers function next Spring. With the nice Blyth rhizomes from Iris Sisters should have some good plants to start with.

How are your potted iris doing? I have a couple that are showing new fan growth.

Blessings