Bea.. That's awesome you live close by there is nothing like Salem during Bloom season
I look forward and enjoy that trip every year always wish we had more time there to see it all the days go way to fast when Im walking Iris rows in Oregon..
Laurie .. Thank you were excited to finally be able to share some of our projects with the world and Thankful they were willing to help with that.
Derlyin.. Thank You I am trying to pick out some uniquely colored plants for intro hoping these 3 are different enough they won't get confused for others in the garden my favorites are the ones I don't need name tags for when there in bloom
Amanda .. Thank You It has been really good here especially beautiful in a big clump as you can see from the picture and has endured some tough midwest winters it will feel right at home in KC
Daisy .. I have been doing a lot of work with reds trying to add some ruffles to the color class and get something different it will be a long term project on the ruffles but progress on lots of good colors popping up
Robin.. Thank You it has some fun colors in it especially like the flower as it ages a beautiful blend of colors..
Lynn.. on the other thread you mentioned Borer problems there are granuals for lawn grubs you can put down now that will eliminate them the active ingredient is Merit usually found in there season long grub prevention at Lowes or one of the big box stores will have it my Dad uses it faithfully every spring .. I have had very few issues with them
and I think its because I am meticulous with the spring clean up in early March my foliage dies back to about 6 inches of green showing and the rest is trimmed and tossed the past few years haven't had to do much of that because the deer will chomp anything green sticking out of the snow so they have made the clean up much easier.. I also do not compost iris that is a west coast thing anything not being replanted hits the trash so were not leaving borers a place to get started..
On Barry's Plants I am assuming were in the same climate or close anyway and when I buy plants from the west coast they are coming from a warm climate and I try to acclimate them for the 1st season by planting them close to my house instead of right away putting them in the open field in the elements.. I also mulch everything now and especially over winter in our climate its not the summer months that cause damage as much as the freeze/ thaw cycles in late winter early spring this works for me because my berms and field drain very well if you ran into a really wet cycle in spring or summer the mulch is easily removed using a leaf blower.. Yes as much sun as you can give them will lead to more blooms for earlier or later varieties they don't have many requirements but sun is important.
The cross you mentioned with Smoke and Thunder is one of my all time favs here was just pollen daubing at the time and got lucky so many fun things bloomed from that in all different patterns and colors there are some of them in Oregon right now just need a little more stock
will preview those here soon .. On Smoke and Thunder depending on what its crossed with you could get anything out of Barry Blyth's plants his work opened up all kinds of new colors and patterns it comes from a plant called Coffee Trader which has Brown tones would be fun to see what happens if you mixed it with some of Barrys other Brown's..like Enter the Dragon, Dragon Dance, Smoking Aces.. Happy Pollen Daubing
Here's an example of some different things that bloomed here from one of Barry's called Valley Of Dreams
19-8A ( Winter's Smile X Valley Of Dreams)
19-54A ( Valley Of Dreams X 13-49G (Just Witchery X My Beloved)
Tom.. Hope you make it back to visit this spring I think you'd like Ease Your Mind for some of your projects it passes the ghio form onto the kids here's a couple of them that were good this year thought 20-83B was very different almost a burnt orange with mixed with violet and pink tones unique!
17-16B ( Ease Your Mind X My Beloved)
20-83 (Star Turn X Ease Your Mind)
A
B
