Iris season is nearly done

 

'Pelican Island' (Joseph Musacchia, R. 2019)

 Not quite the end of Louisiana iris season... but I dont expect many more to open this week. Things have shifted over to the pseudatas and the ensatas. Even the pseudocorus have passed their prime. That's unfortunate this year, because I was hoping to make a few more crosses between the ensatas and Gubijin... but I think the last Gubijin flower might open tomorrow. We'll see. 

 

'Furui Shiro' (Carol S. Warner, R. 2016) SPEC-X

 'Furui Shiro' is one of the tallest pseudatas in the garden. The flowers are easily the largest. Pseudatas are touted as a sterile cross between an ensata (Japanese) iris and a pseudocorus (invasive yellow flag). Leto and I have been checking for pollen on each opening variety of pseudata, just to test this sterility. Sure enough, none of them have pollen in the stamens. In fact, most of the stamens are tiny, misshapen things. It did however make me wonder about the stigma. Hard to know if that is receptive to pollen. I have dabbed pollen onto about a dozen pseudata flowers, just to see if they accept pollen. I've made the crosses with ensata (First Act, and Silverband). The heat hasn't made making crossing easy. When it's too hot and humid, the crosses tend to fail. When it's raining or there's been a heavy dew... same thing. 

  

yes, those are almost all flies

After searching online for any information on how to combat the orthacheta iris bud fly, I despaired of finding anything to use that wasn't a systemic pesticide. Leto and I talked about how the only place we were finding these flies was on the flowers of the ensata irises, and the Louisiana irises. Oh, and then they popped up on the spurias and devastated them! I think we saw one undamaged bloom out of a half dozen on the spuria 'Sunny Day'. Hard not to be depressed by that. 

We took the idea that the fly was very specific in its target... and thought about how we might create a lure. Initially we thought about sticky traps. Then I came across this barn/range trap used on horse farms. Since the lure is not provided, I figured I could try any sort of combination that might draw the iris bud fly. Started with fruit and yeasty water, then the second day, I added a handful of ruined flowers. By day three this trap was audibly buzzing across the yard. Day four we saw no further depredation. This is by no means a scientific answer. Really only a test sample of one. But it certainly merits greater interest and observations. I hope to have a couple more in use next year when the Siberians irises are budding... in hopes of catching these iris bud flies before they land on the budding flowers. 

iris Ensata 'Siverband' with variegated foliage, in front of variegated red twig dogwood

I close with one of my new favorite ensata irises: 'Silverband' also known as iris ensata variegata. The flower is more of an old-fashioned form of ensata. Not as flat or doubled as most of the new ensatas tend to be. The flowers also were loaded with pollen, and held it for two days. That seemed significant, so I pulled some pollen from it to test on a few other irises. We'll see how fertile it proves to be.