How do you gather the seeds and what is the process to grow them from seed. That is something I have never tried and would like to. I do a lot of winter sowing of other plants.
It's Spring Chat and Pictures
Crit, iris seeds develop inside pods. The number of seeds in a pod varies. The pod is first green, then the color dulls then gradually turns light tan. When they are ready, the pod will begin to split at the top. You can then harvest the seeds. Spread the seeds on a kitchen paper towel and allow to dry for 7 days to cure. The color of the seed will change when dry.
It is fascinating that each seed growing in the same pod will produce a brand new and different variety never seen due to many generations of genes that were bred into the parent plants. On the other hand, some seedlings may have a few similar traits from their parents, just like humans. In either case, the result is yours. Any Iris seedling that shows excellence can be named and registered by the grower---You.
Store seeds in the fridge until you are ready. I start my seeds in October since I have many cultivars by soaking the seeds in a container with hand hot water overnight. Allow to cool. The seeds need to remain in the water for at least 3 weeks. Change the water out daily using a strainer to catch the seeds (so as not to lose any). No nicking is necessary. This soaking and rinsing treatment is to remove the seed germination inhibitor present in the seed or seed coat. Outdoors, the fall rains and melting snow in winter do the same thing over a 3 to 4 month period.
If you have only a few cultivars the method below is a quicker way to remove the inhibitor factor. It cuts the soaking time in half.
Buy nylon knee highs---cheap in Walmart. Put the seeds in the knee high so that they'll end up in the foot then take the knee high and a tag and use a mideum binder paper clip to attach the tag to the open end
Remove the top from the toilet tank. Drop the knee high into an area of the tank where it won't interfere with the moving parts in the tank. Be sure to leave the open end outside the tank. The foot part or closed part is put in the tank. The tank top and the binder clip will prevent the sock from sinking into the tank and get flushed.
After soaking, sow Iris seeds in pre-moistened potting soil 1/2" deep in these plastic shoe boxes. I covered the containers and leave them out all winter long on North side of my house. Iris seeds require 12 weeks of less than 40 degrees temperature that flunctuate to break dormancy. They will sprout during spring when temperature reaches 55 to 70 degrees.
If winter temperature has gone in your climate, or you live in a climate without cold winters, the fridge can be used. It will just take a bit longer to break dormancy.
Once the seeds have sprouted, I pot them up in 6-packs filled with potting soil. As the new sprouts begin to grow, I fertilize them with a 1/4 strength fertilizer solution with each watering. About six weeks after they have germinated and are about two inches high, I knock them out of the pots and plant them in the garden and hope for that next Award of Merit winner or better yet -- dream big, a Dykes Medal winner.
Handle them as you would any other perennial seedling.
Iris seeds can be stored in the fridge in ziplock bags and remain viable for years.
1] Where to place the pollen on iris.
2] Seed pod
3] Open pod with seeds
4] Sowed seeds in plastic shoebox, then in bin and placed on the north side of my house all winter covered.
5] Sprouted seeds April 2012
Blomma thanks for this info. I always wondered how you did it after see all your post about Iris sdlgs. Mike
Blomma, I like your seedling of Raspberry Blush x Little Chestnut (possibly?). Very pretty! Great info, btw. Don't know if I'll ever try it. Already have my hands full with daylily hybridizing. If I can ever retire, though, I'll have more time for other things as well.
I can't wait for my TBI's to start blooming. They already have lots of buds. They're gonna be early this year. I just love the fragrance, and I can't just smell it as I'm looking at these pics here.
Karen
Mike You are welcome.
Karen Thank you, I also like the iris seedling. I too hybridize daylilies, but also iris plus I work full time. Since Iris bloom before daylilies, why not try crossing a few. The seeds will be ready if I remember correctly, in 90 days. Just dry soak and plant them. If you do it my way, they won't need your attention all winter.
My irises are beginning to bloom. I have seedlings that are 3 years old now and I can feel a bud deep inside. They are standard bearded. Yes, the season is 1 month early this year. They usually don't flower until late May through mid-June, depending on variety. I have already started crossing irises as they bloom before I go to work.
Received my order of Daylilies from Blue Ridge today. Planting tomorrow. Ordered 4 and got 3 gift plants. WOW! As always, the plants were beautiful and as always, double and sine triple fans.
Electric Marmelade Magic
Pink Ruffled Love
Stars in the Mist
Ballroom Waltz
Colorado Moon Fire---gift
Bristol Fashion---gift
Stardust Heiress---gift
I recently received some D/L also.
Valentines Greetings and Face Paint from Spunky1 a.k.a. our very own Fred.
Metrosexual x 2 + gift of Ypres From Possumhollow
From Morning_star
Sherwood Gladiator
Chicago Apache
Todd Monroe
Dragon King
Bitsy
Red Volunteer
Carmen Renee
Irving Shulman
Daveo Holman
Mephistopheles
Early Snow
Innocent Bystander
Nature Boy
Lots of extra fans and gift plants.
I also got some Apps that I coveted."His Best rebloomer- Dynamite Returns", Red Hot Returns, When My Sweetheart Returns and Scentual Sundance
Second pic is Morning_star. Very SUPER LADY.
Oh great !! maybe that means my Blue Ridge order will be arriving soon! I am anxious to get them in the ground because it is already so hot here!! I did receive four new ones last week and got them in the ground - they seem to be doing well.
Looks like you have a bunch there Mike!
Wow Mike. Looks like you have some work to do.
First daylily bloom - except for Stella - an unknown creamy yellow one
Wow Mike looks like christmas to me have fun planting those beauties.....
Lots of rain right now. On vacation this week to handle the load with plants and seeds. Got more coming. Chop, Chop ! LOL!
yep gonna be chop chop if you dont get all those in the ground. And i am hating all the rain right now keeping me inside
and i need to weed my beds.RAIN RAIN GO AWAY!
"Little Kim want to play". LOL!
Blomma thanks for sharing for this method of doing the breaking dormancy is both inventive and inexpensive. Mom let me use the refrigerator? Never, but the shoe box cool!
Love the cheerful Raspberry Blush x Little Chestnut pos seedling.
My prob with pollinating is that the irises tend to bloom during Maine's rainy season so once they get started rot can set in. I can lose a whole bunch in a long rainy spell.
I do a few iris crosses during a lucky sunny spell, during a lucky year and used the pvc pipe planting method, one seed per little pvc pipe about 1 inch wide. I pop them out with a broom handle once they bloom saving my garden space. That requires labeling the pvc pipes each one but your shoe box method would cut that expense right down to one label for the time of sprouting.
Jeff Dunlop showed me how to pollinate, he labels his crosses and does the reverse cross on the same day to see pod, pol differences, then he chooses what he is looking for. He is a professional with gorgeous siberians, but me, I am not trying to make the best siberian or iris, I just like crossing moderns with historics that are hardy for fun.
I dont have clumps of iris to pollinate cause I might have 1 rhizome that grows slow, I photograph for id purposes in HIPS photo gallery so as long as I weed around the one bloom I need to photograph, I am fine but its not a great way for becoming a hybridizer lol. I havent tried reverse pollination on the same day yet but should my irises ever turn into clumps I want to try it.
Mainer
Yes ii want to play but not in the rain.LOL
Mike, you got some really nice ones. I really like that Early Snow. Very pretty! I will be off for a week at the end of the month, and I'm determined to get all my beds cleaned up (the ones that haven't already been done), get all my new daylilies planted, plus the ones from last year and all my seeds from crosses I did 2 years ago (hopefully they're still viable), and get everything mulched. Yeah, right! I need to clone myself several times over. I'm not even finished cleaning up my sales areas yet, but hope to get a handle on that this weekend. I have so much to do. I need to clone myself several times over.
Blomma, can I just plant the iris seeds right in the ground? That would be easiest for me, as I have no room to start seeds indoors. That's what I'm doing with my daylily seeds.
Mainer, sounds like a problem with all that rain. We can get a lot of rain in the spring here, too. Just never know.
Karen
Karen, iris seeds need flunctuating temperature and 12 week of below 40 temp. It would be too warm now to plant them in the ground. Daylilies are not that fussy as far as stratification.
Why not wait until October, then plant them in a plastic shoebox and leave them outdoors all winter. Keep soil damp, cover the box and forget them until spring. They will begin to sprout when temperature is between 50 to 70 degrees.
Space the seeds 1" apart in the box.
My daylily seeds have been stratified in the fridge. Still in there now. I hope to get them planted soon, but every time I get out in the gardens, other things call my attention and I forget all about them. This is a good time to start them. Maybe by 2015 I'll have blooms on them. Hoping.
Karen
Karen, placing seeds dry in the fridge does not stratify them. Nature always provided moisture with cold. That is what is known as stratification.
When I sow daylily seeds, I first soak in hand hot water over night to plump them. Then I place the plump seeds in a moist kitchen paper towel, and into a zip lock bag. I keep it stratified for 3 weeks in the fridge crisper. After 3 weeks, I place the bag in room temp. Most seeds begin to sprout within 2 weeks. Once sprouted I plant them in 6-packs with potting soil. From there as they grow, they go into a 3" foam (coffee) pot/cup until it is time to plant outdoors, which is what I am currently doing.
I have clay soil and often winds that drives moisture from plants, the reason I don't plant direct.
Kjuddy Pretty bloom on your first blooming daylily.
Blomma, I don't have any room to start them indoors. My mother always refrigerated them for several weeks before starting them. Anyhow, I've had quite a few people say you can do it that way and start them right in the ground. I've been told you can put a bunch of seeds together in one shallow hole, then separate them once they develop a bit. Obviously the ones you put together would be all the same cross, or ones of unknown parentage. Anyhow, I'm going to try it that way, and I'll let you guys know how it works.
Karen
I have had quite a few Irises that produced extra petals but SEASON TICKET has the most with 6. From what I have been told, it has something to do with the winter weather/damage.
I have crosses it and it will be interesting to see how many seeds or pods one flower with 6 petals will produce.
In the first photo it is too orange with 5 petals. The second photo which is normal is color correct.
This message was edited May 10, 2012 8:33 PM
WOW. I have never seen an iris with extra petals.
Very pretty Blomma.
Wow that is pretty!
That's gorgeous!
Karen
They look great! Can't wait to get my first crop of daylily seedlings.
Karen
While browsing thru three stores this past weekend I found three diffrent prices on Milorganite.
Walmart = 14.97
Ace = 13.47
Menards = 8.98
Give or take a few cents. Guess which one I bought ?
You guess right. At that price I got three bags knowing that it will be going up soon. This should last me a few to several years, at least. This would probably last Casshigh a couple days on that beautiful ESTATE. BFG!
This message was edited May 15, 2012 5:10 PM
What is milorganite?
Milwaulkee(sp.) sewer sludge. The daylilies LOVE it.
Blomma, I don't know about the animal repellent factor. It certainly doesn't deter Opossum and the tree rats. No antelopes around here. LOL!
I have heard it deters deer.
Karen
Karen That is what I read where you can buy it online. I live close to the mountains and have antelope come down to visit, usually early spring. Not much damage since I don't grow their favorite foods. My daughter living in the boonies have problems with them. It is fenced in but they jump.
I spent all weekend planting daylily seedlings before the hot weather. Maybe now I will have time to mow. Fun, fun!!!
Below is my daylily nursery. Couldn't get them all in one photo.
Blomma your sdlgs are pretty big. Your indoor nurturing really paid off in terms of a head start. I have some to plant in the ground also. Hopefully I will be able to do so this weekend.
I have a few blooming - these cool evenings are really making it difficult for them to open. Most are not bloomed out by the time I leave for work, and are fading quickly by the time I get home - so I am not getting to enjoy them as much as usual. Here is my Perseus Sandals...... not as pretty as it usually is, but it brightened my day.
Please excuse all the grass - this is in a bed that hasn't been touched yet! With 80 degree temps starting in mid march the grass has a major head start on me!
Genna
Very nice Genna!
Mike, why sow the seeds in the ground? I gained time sowing them per instuctions posted above. The earlier sown, the earlier you get blooms. Actually, the plants in the photo would have been taller if I hadn't given them a "haircut" to prevent them from touching the florescent light tubes.
Below are some of the iris seedlings planted next to the daylilies but protected in a coldframe due to small size.
