a baby step

---

To the iris hungry,

 

My season is off to a slow start.  Painfully slow, it keeps raining.  Rain is good, easier to dig raised beds.  Rain is bad, won't take pictures and can't make crosses.  <big, deep, heavy sigh>  Oh, well.

 

Ran down between showers to see if this one was open yet and in my zeal to shake enough rain off to truly evaluate it the dumb thing popped off the stalk.  Guess I have to mark that as a weak stalk. 

 

06-069-01: Bill Tyson's 97-034-07 X Huckleberry Fudge.  The Tyson seedling is a deep mulberry BC.  This cross was based on my yellow + blue = green hypothesis.  My primary goal for this cross was a "blue" range plicata with yellow ground.  I'm pleased that there is yellow in the ground and such dark color- perhaps too much toward the cranberry- in the plicata.  It also has better ruffling than most of my seedlings so far, good substance, nicely arched standards and falls.... the overlapping style seams, with the stripes that I like....

 

Stalk height is maybe in the IB range- not sure of my heights yet- and of course it is thin... not good bud count.. maybe five bloom size apropriate for height.  I have to give this little guy credit.  He was lined out with about 110 others just as the '07 drought began, and he survived.  I haven't counted them yet but I think there are only about thirty left.

 

I'm looking forward to maiden bloom on another of the 05-119 series in the next few days, bud is dark on the ouside with a ruffle of yellow or tan showing inside...  Will it help if I stand in the iris beds yelling "Just bloom already!!!"

 

Christian