Laughing Ravens

 I have been struggling to figure out how to begin this. What is a long cross? Who cares about weird inter-species cross breeding of irises? Why do I care? And what does this have to do with a TET talk?  Five years ago, when we restarted the garden, I stumbled onto the local rock garden group (NARGS is the national org)... and folks quickly pointed me in the direction of the annual seed exchange . It didnt take five minutes on the SeedEx page before I was lost like a kid in a candy store. I mean, read through the list! It's exhaustive! And someone collected those seeds and donated them to the SeedEx.  Seeds are magical. Every bit of hope and wonder are encapsulated in every single seed. When those seeds have even the tiniest pedigree, there's a story. The seeds came from somewhere. Someone grew them, collected them in the wild, shared them from a family member's garden... on and on. There's a story.  I was hooked. The first year I ordered seeds from NARGS, it was pri...

 Two years ago, we planted our first few iris pseudata... starting with 'Yukiyanagi', 'Alabama Blue Fin' and 'Yarai'. All of them grew so much in the last two years that they have needed to be divided and moved. In 2024, we acquired quite a few more, including the ones in the photos below. 'Alabama Blue Fin' might get the grower-of-the-year award after more than doubling in size in less than a season!   So what's the big deal about iris pseudata? For one thing, it is a species cross (sometimes written SPECX) between iris pseudacorus and iris ensata (images below). From this combination you achieve tremendous vigor from the pseudacorus, and you get color variation and richness from the ensata.   'Ause' ( Carol Warner , R. 2014) SPEC-X (pseudata)   One of the most reliable pseudata/pseudacorus parents is 'Gubijin'. Not a true pseudacorus, with an odd chromosome count of 2n=35. However, it is happy to be the pod parent for nearly all ps...

'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 four...

  '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...

 And this is how we start. Just a simple iris pseudata. Great starting place. Nothing else needed.