I for one enjoy the look of iris foliage. It's prettier than grass and does so well even next to my insanely hot sidewalk and driveway. I try to have other plants blooming in the garden for other times of year even if my heart wants to fill every available garden space with iris.

I've been growing iris from seed for a long time (15+ years) I've never introduced a thing after thousands of seeds I maintain only 28 seedlings 3 are from the late Sam Norris , 2 belong to bill Tyson and the other 2o are from this season in the spring all not showing great vigor will leave I personally don't think most cull hard enough. Take the 2016 bloom introductions currently coming out how many original ones do you see I have looked at at least a hundred most are repeats which for me is a repeated pattern way overdone on the other hand there are several new and improved iris out there. If you cull iris basesd on foliage its easier to wipe the board and start with something that has nice foliage because iris foliage looks like she_t most of the year. Truly the best advice I can give you if you want awesome iris in your small yard is grow others because it literally takes thousands to find any thing worth introduction and that can take years. Be diligent because a lot of those awesome beauties grow poorly and are introduced simply because the bloom is so different

Culling based on branching happens when the branch's are to tight or maybe non existent short even. This varies in different subspecies. arilbreds have no branching. Bud count is different in the various groups as well typically talls should have 7 or better with some cultivates having 11. We search for unique which means 99.9 percent will be crap

I only did one arilbed cross. It took several years before I saw them all. Hybridizing takes patience & with SDBs you can't tell what you have before bloom. I posted a pink seedling for Valentine's day on facebook. It is very sweet but needs another bud.

No hurt feelings here - thanks for everyone's comments.

I have no delusions that I am going to hit gold on my first crosses, lol. I know from (daylily) experience all about having to grow lots of seedlings to get one even halfway decent seedling. I also know (again, daylilies) about lookalikes and all of that. (No, I have no daylily introductions, nor registrations. After many years I am still dithering over one particular diploid, but did not and most likely will not register it because I feel the plant has some faults.)

I agree wholeheartedly that one should not go into hybridizing with the *expectation* of having anything suitable for introduction. It is all about the fun, satisfying the intellectual itch, and having something different and (as one former co-worker put it) "new and exciting" to look forward to each year. It is about playing a small role in bringing something hopefully beautiful (or at least nice) into existence, even if that something never escapes beyond the garden gates.

All of that said... I have an idea what constitutes good budcount and branching for a daylily (and the various factors which can affect these traits). I have read about what constitutes good budcount for an iris. But can someone please point me somewhere for examples of what constitutes good (and bad) branching for an iris?

You are asking about TB irises & I hybridize medians. The 'standard' for TBs is 7 buds. therefore I would be attracted to plants which have more buds than that. the flowers should not have crowded flowers & open into each other. Irises are not self shedding of buds like DL are.

The one factor I really like is spaced blooming. I can only reference my iris Feed Back. It took a couple weeks to finally stop blooming. Eventually I stopped looking at the blooms, which was great. I had two rhizomes and 1 stalk each, but the blooms were so perfect, branches were spaced so no over crowding, and big blooms that worked their way from top to bottom.

It can make a difference of how many buds in one 'socket'.

Lucy, not all (and maybe not most? ) daylilies shed their dead blooms, at least not quickly. Large blooms can be especially bad. I deadhead every day during bloom season.

Bloom spacing... good point.

As I am to understand prime branching is well spread and has a balanced look three flowers open in a candelabra pattern

3 flowers open at once is not a good trait as far as I am concerned. It is not a requirement. 3 at once means a shorter bloom season. It can be ok when there are a lot of buds but when there are 7 buds & 3 open, the bloom season is short.
More buds & 3 open at once you might be ok.

I agree, Lucy. When I have a stalk and they all open nearly at once it is a lovely stalk but soon it will not be. The one that comes to mind is Stairway To Heaven. I get some gorgeous stalks but the beauty is short lived. I much prefer fewer blooms open per stalk and a longer bloom period

And then we get to reblooming irises...

Curious you should mention 3 blooms at once and all that.

I've been wading through some articles in the Iris Bulletin (I got an e-membership), and there was one article that hit on just this point (various iris authorities/hybridizers weighed in on it). Basically it seems to come down to, the perfect iris for a show, is not the perfect iris for the garden. In the first case, the perfect show scape has 2 or more blooms open. But if 2 or more blooms are open at the same time, that means the bloom season is over quicker, which makes it a bad specimen for the garden. In the garden, you want those blooms one at a time, to extend the bloom season.

My interest is not on shows, but on garden performance.

I gather "candleabra" branching is longer branching, then?

It means a wide branching. Rebloom stalks come during another season & perhaps fewer blooms on them as the season is later.

Candelabra is a term I picked up from Jim Ennaga a local enthusiast funny it was at a show and that was what he called a balanced show stalk the 1 he pointed out to me was Puccini a variety I had brought for exhibition had three open blooms the terminal and one to each side and lower very, balanced I wish you would reconsider the exhibitions. I am not a member of any iris clubs but I know them and each year I exibit the very best I can carry as well as pieces for their sale since Tom Parkhill pointed out to me that I could show blooms in a category that most could not ( the arilbreds) I tried to say no I wasn't interested in ribbons till he pointed out to me that the show isn't about the ribbons its about introducing iris to others. Knowing from the photos that you are posting here that were the show in a mall you have dozens that would pull a passerby into the exibition.

Some people are more interested in shows. In a show I would give credit if 2 flowers are open at once on different stalks., Even in a show you can often see more buds to come.

On my SDBs I like 3 buds, 2 on one stalk & one on a 2nd. There are sometimes 2 buds on on 2 stalks, but some which are bragged about 4 or 5 buds turns me off. The flowers can get in each others way. The criterian for MTBs is 6 buds, some have more & it really makes a difference where grown. John's 'Billie the Brownie' produces 6 buds here. when we saw it at a convention in MD, it was producing 10 & they were not interfering with each other. Whee!

ISM doesn't do shows in a mall but the show is very crowded just because people want to see the flowers. A mall show is difficult because people can get in the way, but it is great to introduce flowers which are not 'the purple one' or 'the yellow one'.

I have only one successful seedling thus far - a common JI from some eBay Japanese seeds, but I think I have a plan that will make culling easy in the future. We have a great hill of poison ivy off the edge of the local cemetery. It is loaded with daffodils from all the spent planters chucked over the edge. No one digs anything there. What a lovely place to practice pitch rhizomes that have "bad foliage."

@Linnea.... You're joking, right? *itch*

@arilbred - I've been there and done that with daylily shows, and yes, shows *can* be of interest to the general public.

Seeing as I now belong to the local iris club, and their show will be held not far from my house, I *might* display. Really, though, most of my irises have (up to now) been so neglected that it will be surprising if I get much bloom out of them. The two which I have tons of rhizomes of, I suspect may not be in bloom at the time of the show - 'Busy Being Blue' (early) and 'Sweet Musette' (mid late). (Anyway, even if I had scads of blooming scapes, I would probably only enter a few. I know all about the importance of grooming daylily scapes for shows, and I presume that irises are the same - in short, it takes a lot of time to primp up a scape. Not to mention that I will want the color in the garden. And DH would most likely be unhappy if I take any of the two dark purples, which he really loves.)