Cross-Pollinated Iris Update

I was asked about how well my cross-pollinated Iris were doing. In 2011 I had finally successfully cross-pollinated a purple iris with a black iris, and vice versa. Tons of them germinated in January of 2012 during the mild winter, a lot more than I ever expected because I was told that it's very difficult to get them to germinate.


For a quick refresher on what the parents looked like; Purple on left, Black on right. I know it doesn't look anything black but that's the name that was told to me - probably because when the flowers are emerging, they appear very black before it opens.

The bed above contains "Purple Mom / Black Dad" iris. Very bad angle, I know. I found that the seedlings from this batch of seeds grew very big. A good number of them have started setting off new rhizomes.

This batch above, outlined with black border, is the "Black Mom / Purple Dad" batch. The seedlings from this batch are much smaller and I'm not sure they're being as prolific with rhizomes.

It sort of surprises me on how genetics play a part. The black iris is very quick to grow new rhizomes and bloom a lot. The purple iris seems to be very slow in wanting to grow new rhizomes and don't bloom as often. So it seems the fathers are influencing the seedlings very much...

There's no flowers yet. Last year I reached out to a guy who crossed irises and he warned me that if any pops up this spring, not to get attached to the flower as it meant that it focused on developing a bloom instead of forming new rhizomes. He did warn me that there will be blooms, though.

Anything's possible. Ever since the seedlings popped up last year, they've been growing since. The 2012/2013 winter was not cold enough to kill them down so they're still going ever since they popped up.