Pseudata Surprises

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

 I expected that after the last of the Louisiana irises finished blooming, that the iris season was over. I had not expected the iris pseudata and the iris ensatas to pick up the pace. June ended with a few of the pseudatas sending up their first-season blooms. This included 'Ause' and 'Furui Shiro'. I was thrilled to see anything bloom on 'Ause' since it was planted late last summer, and sometimes it can take a while for a plant to establish in a new location. 

'Furui Shiro' has been something altogether different. It is in its second year (having not bloomed at all last summer)... and the growth spurt this spring was intimidating. When you read the advertising copy on websites, you have to take everything with a grain of salt, right? Well, Carol Warner described it this way: "There are three branches on the stalk giving about 10 blooms. The terminal on a well grown plant will push a fourth bud to extend the season. The plant is very vigorous here." from Draycott Gardens. 

What isn't mentioned is that thanks to having about 10 blooms per stalk... a second year plant has bloomed for nearly 20 days. Granted, that's 2-3 blooms at a time, one or more on each stalk. But for a second year plant, that is an incredible display. The vigorous growth can be assumed from the pseudocorus in its ancestry,  but until you've tried moving (or dividing) a pseudata, you just haven't fully experienced this level of vigor.

'Ause' (Carol Warner, R. 2014) SPEC-X (pseudata)

 I realize that most folks hear "iris" and immediately think "bearded iris". The pseudatas that I am referring to, are beard-less irises. In most ways they are nearly the opposite of your garden variety tall bearded iris. These pseudatas love water and will happily grow in muck or runoff areas. They dont need to be divided often, the way bearded irises do. Part of this comes from their parentage. 

"Pseudata" is the term for an iris resulting from a cross of I. pseudacorus X I. ensata. Modern varieties are typically 30"-45" tall and strong-growing plants with multiple flowers per stalk. Many exhibit a strong "eyelash" pattern in their signal.- from the Iris Wiki 

  

iris pseudocorus, otherwise known as yellow flag or the dreaded ditch iris. It is invasive and should be kept far away from waterways, ponds and streams. This is the pod-parent for the pseudata cross.

 

'Alabama Blue Fin' - (Jill Copeland, R. 2016) Seedling Y-4. SPEC-X (pseudata)

 'Alabama Blue Fin' - (Jill Copeland, R. 2016) is a pseudata we received from two different people over the last year or so. In the first instance, the fear was that the plant might not survive. It looked worse for the travel and time out of the ground. The second division we were offered came from an irisarian who had a clump about four feet across. She suggested we take as much as we wanted. Leto took a shovel-ful and popped it off the main body of the plant. That single shovel-load of iris probably weighed 8-9 pounds. 

Initially, we planted 'Alabama Blue Fin' in pots since we weren't sure where we'd plant it. In the end, I divided it with the Spade-of-Doom and planted it beneath opposing posts on the east facing side of the bean arch. They frame the arch entrance gracefully.   (side note: if you haven't used the Spade-Of-Doom before, or if you've destroyed more shovels and spades than you feel comfortable with, check one out. They are indestructible. It is not light or comfortable, but it is the tool you NEED for some tasks.)

 

'Yasha' (Hiroshi Shimizu by Carol Warner, R. 2010) SPEC-X (Pseudata)

'Yasha' might be my new favorite pseudata. That pink/purple/fuchsia is so incredibly rich! It fades beautifully over 2-3 days. I am curious to see how it behave in subsequent years. This was its first year blooming in our garden, and the plant was still quite small. I think once it gets a toehold, it is going to be magnificent!

One of the things that make pseudatas so appealing is: "since some of these crosses generally result in sterile hybrids, there is no danger of such plants becoming invasive, as is possible with I. pseudacorus"  While that sounds solid and certain, there is actually some slight ambiguity. In our very limited experience, our observations has been that the stamens are absolutely borked. They are devoid of pollen. In fact, most of the time we found the stamens to be slightly deformed, underdeveloped and incapable of holding pollen inside them. However, I am not so certain about the infertility of the ovaries. I will be making a few more tests to see if certain crosses are possible. One of the things I am keen to test is skipping the flower-parts entirely, and just adding pollen directly to the ovaries by removing the entire flower above the ovary. Flower-bypass?

I'll close with a recent surprise. Just before the Siberian Iris Convention in May, I purchased a tetraploid pseudata from Jill Copeland which should be fertile. The big question is what would it be fertile with? What other iris species would it be capable of crossing with? So far there are only a small handful of tetraploid pseudatas, however this opens up a whole range of possibilities!