Hope they do well, Elsa!

Thanks Lili!!!!

OK - Well this is my 2015 cross that I am waiting to see a bloom on. This has to have a bloom in there - right? Just don't want to get too excited and then a bunch of leafs pop out or something

I had recently mentioned that I was really worried about my 2016 crosses because I had tried a different method and not done things exactly how I should have. But I am pretty sure this is a newborn sprouting. I have only done this once before so I am not an absolutely sure but if any of you are, please share...

Final question and sorry for so many tonight but... I was looking at my other container that has nothing and wondered...Do some crosses produce seed that will not produce offspring? I have heard the term sterile seed and wondered.

GreenIris said:I had recently mentioned that I was really worried about my 2016 crosses because I had tried a different method and not done things exactly how I should have. But I am pretty sure this is a newborn sprouting. I have only done this once before so I am not an absolutely sure but if any of you are, please share...

Yes, that's an iris seedling.

GreenIris said:Final question and sorry for so many tonight but... I was looking at my other container that has nothing and wondered...Do some crosses produce seed that will not produce offspring? I have heard the term sterile seed and wondered.

I almost always have some percentage, normally less than 10% per year, of crosses that produce seeds but none of them ever germinate. I couldn't say with any certainty why it happens.

Thanks so much Kent for your help and expertise

Sometimes it takes a year or more for iris seeds to germinate. One pot of seedlings here were started in fall of 2015 and are just now coming up. Others show green in a few months.

@GreenIris: It may be the first time that you can be grateful you've been given the finger! I giggled when I first heard that ~ people call the first sprouting "giving the finger"!

Thanks Jan and Barbalee Never heard that either. Given the finger... but that may actually help me remember better how to identify the next time one shows up

Ice heard seeds can possibly germinate according to their season if you put several pots out it's be more noticeable. I too have a couple pots showing nothing.

The thing to remember is that bearded iris are highly hybridised from a fairly diverse set of species with often very different habits, most of the original species can interbreed but not all of them do so readily. If you look into the bigger/more well documented hybridisers you'll tend to find they often use a pool of related iris (often that they have bred over years) and that they tend to produce more over time and relatively few early on....what's happening there is the fertility related genes are being skewed towards being like each other/compatible within the pool they are hybridising from. If on the other hand you're crossing two iris from completely different sources it's more a case of rolling the dice about whether the genes connected to fertility will be readily compatible or just difficult. It's the same thing that happens in the majority of highly hybridised organisms (roses is probably a good and fairly well documented example), with a lot of species in the genetic history of them, the genes of fertility aren't always going to be highly compatible because the wider genepool isn't as highly skewed.

May I ask a question?
I have some seedlings that were germinated in pots outside about a year ago. I wish to plant them in the ground soon but would like to wait until I have some landscaping work done. It is autumn/fall here and winter is a couple months away. Is it Ok to plant them in winter when they are dormant? There is no ice or snow or excessive moisture to deal with.
Thanks.

Robin, if they are planted in individual pots now, you could just slip the whole plant with attached soil into the ground and it should work OK, but if they need to be removed from the soil and re-planted, they would need time to re-establish their root system.

Thanks Tom. Unfortunately I have many crammed together in pots. I think I will leave them alone until spring.

Thanks Gabe and Protoavis. I truly don't know what I am doing yet. So all the advice is quite helpful!

I've forgotten, when parents are listed, which is named first, the pollen parent or the pod parent? For example the parents of Abbey Chant are
Aaron's Dagger x Chanted, is Aaron's Dagger the pollen parent or the pod parent?

gemini_sage said:I've forgotten, when parents are listed, which is named first, the pollen parent or the pod parent? For example the parents of Abbey Chant are
Aaron's Dagger x Chanted, is Aaron's Dagger the pollen parent or the pod parent?

pod x pollen


I mean you may see chanted x unknown but never unknown x chanted.

Thanks! That's what I was thinking, then I started doubting myself