Good Morning Donald,
Thanks for the seedling picture. I myself still get excited if I get
any seedling far along enough to bloom. That quickly fades when I see that most
of my seedling lack any unique qualities. Most get slated to head for the great
compost heap in the sky. I know the blah feeling when they just don't do
anything for you in the long run.
I've noticed the attribute you mentioned of the arils types of iris really
taking off once they come out of dormancy. I am hoping that will not be a
bad thing up here. Two nights ago it suddenly got down to 22 and last
night it was below freezing again, even though the forecast said it wouldn't
freeze. Sigh. I'm still waiting to see if the iris got zapped or
not. All of my arilbreds are planted on the south side of the house where
the sun warms the cinderblock foundation for the basement. I am hoping
that this radiated enough heat to keep things from freezing too badly. I
am sooooo ready for warm weather!!! I'll cross my fingers both for the
plants here and your seedlings down there. Maybe you'll still get bloom
out of that second seedling.
We have our iris club meeting this weekend. I will be quizing my
friend from over near Peoria on how her Arils are doing in this weather.
If nothing else, it is still interesting to learn how new plants will do around
here and, as much as I hate to say it, there is always next year.
Thanks and good luck!
Brian Davis
Champaign, Illinois
In a message dated 3/31/2009 9:58:50 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
donald@eastland.net writes:
Hello Brian,
I'm glad you're trying some ABs. I think they'll prove
to be like other
iris classes where some do well and others not so well
and some won't. I'd
think a lot of the arilmeds would do well in colder
climates with their
median background, but I think others might surprise
people. I find a lot
of them work on speeded up growth. When they break
dormancy or when they
are growing toward bloom season, many develope
everything rapidly compared
to other iris. That can be beneficial, but can
also be a drawback. The
race to bloom sometimes means they escape some bad
things simply because
there's less time for those things to occur. A big
downside is they also
dwindle faster if they go into decline. Sometimes
that happens so quickly
you don't realize it until it's too late to
salvage them. However, one of
the true weedy iris here is an AB. There's a
clump in a bad location where
some rhizomes got dropped unnoticed when I
was dividing.
Always look forward to seeing new things and the photo is
the first of the
very few I'll see this year. It's a cross of RARE SPICE X
(AT LAST x LUELLA
DEE). This was the second day of bloom after it opened
in winds gusting to
40mph. Not really appealing to me. Some interesting
aspects to it. It
retained the very dark beards that were a hallmark of
the (ALxLD) seedlings
and I like those. The photo doesn't show it, but
there's an orange cast to
the color in the falls. Also not clear is the
tan midrib on the standards
has a matching tan color patched on the top of
the standards. That's an
interesting effect I've not seen before. Still,
overall, it doesn't work
for me. There's a sibling that I hope will bloom
this year and maybe I'll
like it better. That sibling has actually had
better plant growth, but so
far I don't see any sign of a stalk emerging.
I'm seeing a lot of that this
year. I'm guessing some things have had to
put their energy into survival,
not bloom.
Donald Eaves
donald@eastland.net
Texas Zone
7b, USA
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