----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 1:58
AM
Subject: [SpaceAgeRobin] Thinking about
crosses to make
Yesterday I got carried away with myself--and was
desperate to get things under way--so I spent too many hours at work outside,
cleaning up winter weeds and cleaning away windblown oak leaves, Magnolia
plastic leaves (at least they feel like plastic, so stiff and hard), and
winter-dead foliage on the irises.
When I went to try to stand up, I sure noticed I
had gone too far. My old bones and muscles have softened over winter,
and I'm not in condition for as much as I did. I made good progress in
the garden, though. I just suffered a bit from having done so.
Such is life and the Golden Years.
So last night, despite extra painkillers,
I spent a loooong time before sleep caught up with me. It was a
wonderful excuse to plot mischief and think about crosses. Besides, the
Mid-America catalog came yesterday, and there are some lovely, tempting things
in their introductions and listings, including last year's
ANNOUNCEMENT.
There were not so many SA's this year as usual, I
noted, but wax and wane is the course of all natural events. This is the
low "wane" before the next high wave, I suppose.
Devonshire Cream was looking good, as were a few
others. I've got to move L. Anfosso's FLUTE ENCHANTÉ out into better
light. She's not so happy where she is, and not increasing. A
towering Crepe (Crape?) Myrtle overshadows and root-competes in that
location. I can give FLUTE better--this delicate pink offspring of
Beverly Sills has wonderful substance and form, and the most delightful long,
simple horn. It is a most satisfying garden subject, as well as being a
very good simple-horn SA. I have yet to get pods from its pollen, or set
a pod on it after three years of trying. Maybe this year!
I splurged and bought a couple more
Christopherson varieties last year. I was so pleased with the flounced
IN A HEARTBEAT that I bought its wider sib, HEARTBEAT AWAY, also a flounced
yellow.
BYE BYE BLUES and PRAETORIAN GUARD look healthy,
happy, and I hope to see bloom on them as well. SOLAR FIRE, still
another 2004 acquisition, offers endless opportunities for
parenthood.
Many of these are included in the lists or
alternate lists for the hoped-for crosses of 2005.
YAQUINA BLUE is an obvious, proven,
parent for flounced SA's, so it's a natural.
Christopherson's LET'S BE FRIENDS is a near-SA or
proto-horned, occasionally minimally horned (I think) not-quite-non-SA
offspring of SPIRIT WORLD, that is an obvious potential parent, as is
DEVONSHIRE CREAM, despite the reports on poor performance in the
SW.
Also, some that show conspicuous BSE's such as
SWINGTOWN offer potential, provided it blooms. It is in decline due
to neglect and badly in need of resetting, so I may not see bloom on it here
this year. These offer good potential, as does the Yaquina
Blue-offspring SEA POWER. I'd like to see what kind of SA's it might
give.
Similarly, CORDOVA, closely related to QUITO, one
of those noted as giving few if any SA's might be one to try for the
cross-type with non-productive-of-SA parents.
These crosses with those known or reported NOT to
give SA progeny are important! I may not see bloom on my remnants of
ROMANTIC EVENING-I've given too much of it away--but the anecdotal remark from
Mike Sutton about the single flounce on one fall of WILD WINGS intrigues
me. It may have the same genetic factor present in its parent, Romantic
Evening, that it too may be one of the non-producers. That chimeric fall
flounce is suggestive.
My own POWER WOMAN will be interesting to try
with SA's. It is from the BSE-showing Swingtown X the known
non-producer, Romantic Evening. It may be interesting to see which way
the wind will be blowing with PW. There are a number of its seedlings
here that might be interesting as well, particularly with SOLAR FIRE.
The pigment combinations could be marvelous.
The Keppel Luminatas may be fun. They all
have a lot of ancestry in common with the early SA's, so may be fertile
potential. SPIRIT WORLD, despite its puzzlingly difficult performance in
some areas, is one that seems on the verge of being an SA itself, and gives
some SA seedlings of merit. I obtained DRAMA QUEEN and TELEPATHY last
year to get a sampler of Keppel Luminata breeding to see how they like our
mountain red gumbo and yo-yo temperatures. I don't want to set pods of
them yet, but can use their pollens.
What we're on the lookout for is a "normalizer"
or "inhibitor" control factor present in some irises. Such a factor
would explain the appearance of SA's from non-SA parents, of which there have
been several--not only Austin's. SA's act like dominants in most crosses
since the early breaks EXCEPT in the non-producing parents. One might
note the pedigree chart Mike Lowe has prepared on the HIPS website for
THORNBIRD.
We need to pinpoint and identify what is going on
with these non-producers, so the cross type is important! It is in the
F2 or back-cross to SA's that the ratios get significant with those.
Please don't overlook making the crosses of this type. The list of KNOWN
non-producers is short, but ROMANTIC EVENING is one of them that many will
have. DYNAMITE is another.
I'd be interested to hear the midnight musings of
the rest of you. What are you planning? Hoping for?
Determined to try?
Do I sound like I have Spring Fever? Oh, do
I ever!
Neil Mogensen z 7 western NC
mountains
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