Natives in spring-sages, mallows, chocolate daisies, western redbud, island mallow and more.

Old historic irises in landscape-flower every year with no care!

This hillside garden features matilija poppies, sages, and desert mallows in Simi Valley.

Yellow pacific coast native iris in landscape and spuria iris with orange tree in 2nd landscape.

All kinds of salvia’s and fremontodendron and even a tall bearded iris.

Sages, mallows, and California poppies in this parkway landscape.

Historic irises and orange trees-your classic Calif. lanscape.

Native Calif. meadow scene with poppies, grasses, sages, Calif. lilac.

Hillside landscape with Calif. poppies, sages, mallow, and Calif. lilac.

Calif. natives and tall bearede reblooming irises-tall bearded rebloomers, island pink yarrow, hummingbird sage, and pacific coast irises.

Native hillside landscape features cleveland sage, Calif. lilac, Lessingia ‘Smart Aster’ (don’t know the common name) plus coast live oaks.

More will be added as people send them it. Check out the promotion to see what you get if you send in a picture and send one in too!!

Let’s start with what hybridizing is: Hybridizing is the
affirmative act of collecting pollen from the male iris and implanting it in
the female iris. It involves collecting pollen and implanting it in the same
iris too, or “selfing”.  No smart ass remarks here either.  If a bee, the wind,
or another insect performs this function, it’s not the same.

Ok, how do I pick the irises that I want to hybridize or “cross”?  That’s the big question that we’ll try to focus on. Remember again, this is a long-term hobby.  If you cross something in spring, you won’t see the “flower” for at least 2 years. You still won’t have a clue as to whether or not you’ve really got something for another 1 – 2 years after that.

Let’s start the process with a couple of really simple goals. Frist, we’d like interesting flowers and maybe structure. Second, they have to be durable and survive in your location. This may seem like a big jump but it’s not.  It’s the bare minimum.  To grow something that’s not particularly beautiful isn’t very interesting and hardly worth the time.  Additionally, to grow something that’s a knock out but kicks the bucket after the first flower, well, I’ve done plenty of that and it’s not a fun experience.

Now you’re ready to start. You need stock material.  You want
to work with the widest array of different looking irises that grow well in
your area.  That’s because the wider the array of traits you pick to start your hybridizing, the wider the array of offspring, and the more likely you’ll get something “interesting”.  If you cross one lavender Iris douglasiana with another lavender Iris douglasiana you most likely will get a bunch of lavender Iris douglasiana’s.  Hard to
believe I used to do this and wondered why I got the result I did.  My friend, Richard Richards, straightened me out on this and didn’t laugh or call me names for being so dense.

So, now we’re going to get this wide selection of irises to cross – great!  Let’s look at the second criteria, picking irises that grow well in your area.  You can do this by asking your friends and/or going to public gardens and seeing which irises are growing well. You can also tap the power of the web. There are tons of iris sites as well as our on SPCNI
Facebook page where people will be happy to help you out.  Remember, it does no good to go to all the trouble of crossing irises only to watch them kick the bucket in summer. If you
follow this plan, you should have some pretty good “stuff” by the 4^th year or so.

The next step is letting some of your friends plant a few in
their gardens. If your irises are doing well in your friends’ gardens after a
year or so, chances are you’ve got something that should be registered.  I did the same thing, only it took me a couple more years. I wish I’d had this road map, but we finally have a few things to register too.  Some of these are shown below.

If you do this for a few years, after the 2^nd year, it’s a pretty cool thing to have new irises that no one has ever seen, and you’ve created something each spring. Not exactly like seeing the birth of a child, but exciting none the less.

Note, we’ve stayed away from the “how to grow” information.  There’s plenty of this on
the web and it’s also a different subject. We also didn’t cover how to hybridize for branching, ruffles, a blue rim, color, veining, snow, heat, etc.  If you’re going to get into this sort of thing, you need a doctor’s note.

Growing Matilija Poppies
Matilija poppies, or Romneya coulteri for my purest friends, has the largest flower of any poppy. It’s native to dry, sunny areas from California to Baja. The flower petals are bright with yellow-orange stemains in the center that look just like a golf ball. The flowers also measure 6+ inches across and usually begin in late March and can continue until August, given a bit of water. So, how do you get them started, and how do you take care of them? They have a bad reputation of being both difficult to start and invasive. The latter can actually be true.

To start them growing properly there are just 4 rules to follow:
1. Take them out of the nursery container and place them in the hole without breaking the rootball. Breaking the rootball is pretty much instant death.
2. Plant them in fall or winter- you’ll have much better luck getting them established. This is true of most natives, too.
3. Plant them in a sunny spot at or above the level of the surrounding soil, and water.
4. Water them 1x per week and no more to get them started.
If you can only remember the first two points, you’re 90% on your way!
The rest of the “care” is pretty easy, there isn’t much. There are some “what some people do” sorts of things to note that will make them look better and flower longer. Some people give them a good soaking monthly even after they’re established. That extends the flowering time. Some people cut them back in fall or winter and that makes them look a lot neater. As soon as they are cut back, new clean growth starts quickly.
They indeed can be aggressive, so give them room, especially when planting them in sandy soil.
There, done.

Well, you have to divide your PCI’s at the right time of year. In Southern California that’s between mid November and early January. I’ve tried doing this earlier and later and it doesn’t work. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve done this more than once. You’re almost ready for action. I would water your irises a couple of days before you divide them to stimulate some root growth. Next, dig them up from the outside and try pulling them up intact in one large clump. Shake the dirt then wash off with a garden hose; you can’t let the roots dry out. Place the large clump on a table and divide them. It’ll be really easy to see where they should be divided. You’ll see individual rhizomes, which tells you where to divide/tear. Now take the pieces that you’ve separated and let them sit in a solution of 1% to 2% bleach and water for 5 minutes or so. Rinse off the bleach and water then let them sit in a bucket of water while they are waiting to be planted. You want to plant within an hour or so.

Ready to plant! PCI’s in Southern California need to be planted in a shady place. You can plant them back in your garden or a container. In either case the soil needs to drain really well and you have to plant “high” so the water doesn’t drain and sit in the crown or they will rot. You can incorporate a bit of bone meal into the planting mix or some time release fertilizer. Read the label on the fertilizer and divide by 2. Now water!!!!!! You want keep up the watering about 1x per week so they don’t get too wet but they don’t dry out. If it rains you’re most likely off the hook for between 1 and 2 weeks. And you should also get flowers from about half of your new divisions in the first spring.

The monarchs will start coming to your garden in April and you’ll have several generations in your garden ending in late fall. That’s when the last generation flys down to Mexico. Here are a few pictures of what you will be seeing:

These are pretty much the 4 stages of live action: 1) monarch laying eggs 2) caterpiller eating the milkweed 3) chrysalis 4) chrysalis about the hatch-not the outline of the wings becoming clear. For more info. please go to : http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/

or see our own video “caterpillar vs milkweed” on youtube: