I'm attaching a picture of three blooms of Iris dichotoma,
the Vesper Iris. All three were grown from seed. The first clone is
definitely long lived in my garden; I've been growing it for almost
15 years. The color of the flowers is a bit muted for my tastes, but
it does have the typical branching of I. dichomotma with
lots of flowers.
The other two clones were grown from 2010 seed, one from NARGS and
the other from SIGNA. The NARGS plant has much cleaner color that my
older plant and shares its nice branching. I like the deep color of
the 2010 SIGNA plant, although its branching is relatively poor.
As I recall, last summer there was a discussion about I.
dichotoma that included remarks that the plant is often short
lived. I have my three clones in the kitchen attempting to cross the
older plant with the two newer ones. I'm using the older plant as a
pod parent with pollen from the NARGS plant. My success rate is low
(I guess I need to take lessons from a bee), but I have at least a
couple pods coming along. The 2010 SIGNA plant has just started
blooming, I'm using it as a pod parent with pollen from the older
plant. With some luck, I'll have a few seeds for the SIGNA exchange.
Ken Walker
Concord, CA USA
