Just for fun and to see if I could, I crossed Red Butterfly X Pretty Pansy. The pod just cracked and I found 19 seeds, 15 are plump and 4 are crinkled.
I'm a novice at the next step. I live in zone 5 (cold winters, cool nights and warm day summers). Last year, using seed from 4 different crosses, I tried planting in both a prepared bed and prepared pots (clean coarse sand combined with seed potting mixes recommended by people on this discussion list). To pretreat the seeds I rinsed them several days and then refrigerated some (not in a burrito), planted some seeds in pots that I then kept cooled in a root cellar all winter and the last third of the pots I planted (the pot) in the soil outdoors. I scooped snow onto the pots in the spring to continue the cooling and to keep the soil from drying out. Not a single iris leaf emerged.
I'm looking for suggestions. Should I find someone else to try to grow the seeds or is there something else I could try?
Feel free to contact me directly since this is not specifically about photos.
Thanks!
Patti
