It looks like this year some of my hybridization efforts worked (first time), and I have three pods working on making seeds. I keep seeing information that every seedling is different, and I'm curious about how varied they can be. I'd love to see photos of some of the variations that can happen between seedlings having the same parents. Do any of you have some photos?

Lynn. Congratulations!

I have a few pods too, also first time. An experiment really.

I think some others on this forum actually have some seedlings.

Look for Brad's thread A Record Year. In his pictures you will see some of his seedlings. The numbers that are sequential are siblings (such as 12-12a, 12-12b, etc.). There are some really interesting results, including siblings that are yellow and red blends that also produced a purple self sibling. All different aspects of the parents showing up.

Congratulations Lyn
Unfortunately I only have one seedling that has bloomed so far. A few more siblings should bloom in November.

I lost all of my seedling pictures for this year. Many times they look a lot like one or the other parent, some times they are very different then both. It's fun to see what you get.

Thank you so much for the tip about looking up Brad's "A Record Year" thread, Leslie. I've been drooling over all the lovely irises. I was telling myself that this year is the only year I'll try hybridizing, but after a look at all those, I can see that it is guaranteed to be addicting. You want to buy more irises just so you can experiment. Then I think about our hillside rock farm and realize how much work it would be to make decent iris beds.

I posted earlier about meeting up with a caterpillar when I was about to pluck a stamen with my tweezers. I had pollinated one stigma, and the meetup with the caterpillar shocked me into forgetting about my project until the next day, when I went back and did all three stigmas on that iris again, just to be sure. BUT I realized later, when I went to document my work, that I had used two different cultivars for pollinating (that blankety blank caterpillar!). I know I've read you don't need to pollinate all three stigmas, but since none of them took last year, this year I did all three stigmas on five irises, and three made nice, fat pods.

I'm wondering what happens when you have two widely-different pollen parents on the same receiver plant. It will be interesting to see!

I always use all 3. the more pollen, the more seed, I say--why would you not want the whole compliment of seeds?

irisarian said:I always use all 3. the more pollen, the more seed, I say--why would you not want the whole compliment of seeds?