Barabara.. Thank You ! I agree on yellows they are standout colors in the garden and go with so many other things surprises me there not more popular..
Tom.. I haven't done a whole lot of work with Ecstatic because the other 2 sibs were worked a lot but starting to incorporate it in some crosses with pinks it's got excellent stalks and very lacy should be a bunch of seedlings bloom from it in May
Lucy.. It's certainly a lot less work to plant them and let Mother Nature take it's course
but the growing season here is so short it will take twice the time to see them them bloom so with the greenhouse I can cut the time down and hopefully see 50-70% bloom the following year this helps with the space and I can clear things out that are not keeper faster ..
Lyn .. Interesting article on pod/ pollen parents probably a good question for Keith or Joe .. I certainly have tried doing Reciprocal crosses over the years with different plants ..take for example My Beloved you mentioned I worked it heavily for many years trying to get its form to transfer onto other colors and I did early on but lot's of those were lost in 2017 ..it was rare to get it to set pods for me but it is very fertile pollen wise so many of my seedlings from it come from it that way because I couldn't get it to set pods.. I now use a lot of the children that were introduced from it in crosses because I want to pick up the genes from it but don't want to repeat the work that has already been done with the plant between Joe and Barry probably thousands of seedlings bloomed from it over the years better to use the newest things out it
I would guess if you ran the same experiments with today's Iris meaning things introduced over the past 5 years the results would be much different as the pedigrees are more complex now then they were almost 20 years ago when that article came out especially Barry's anything is possible .. pull up Decadence in the database and look at the 421 kids that were introduced from it probably hundreds using it as a pollen parent and as a pod parent so I would try to think of it as when crossing 2 plants together you will get a mix of both and that includes good traits and bad especially when branching is concerned and that is the hardest to fix and why you here me harping about using the newest Keppel plants you have as there is no flaws in them..and the seedlings why maybe not all perfect will have a very good foundation to work with ..
