Pacific Coast Irises – Buying from the Group Marked “Mixed”!
Pacific Coast Irises – Buying from the Group Marked “Mixed”!
By Matilija Bob
Every year we produce and pot up a large group of “mixed” pacific coast iris hybrids. These are from our own hybridizing that we did, not the year before but two years before. It generally takes at least two years from “crossing” irises to get the first flower and sometimes 3 or 4 years. The flowers from these crosses can be all over the place, just about every color combination you can imagine. Because of the tremendous genetic diversity swirling around in the background of these irises,even the flowers from “siblings” tend to look more like a random population entering Disneyland than a family portrait.
Buying pacific coast irises from the group marked “mixed” is like playing the pacific coast iris lottery. Sometimes they have flowers and you have an idea as to what you’re getting but full information is still a gamble because they can still be short or tall or….. Other times you can see that they are going to be big but you don’t know the flower colors…. It’s always a surprise.
So when you come to the nursery to buy pacific coast irises and you’re in front of the thousands of irises in the sections marked “mixed” you gotta ask yourself “do you feel lucky”?
Here are a few pictures from last year from the section marked “mixed”. To learn more about pacific coast irises you can go to http://pacificcoastiris.org/, if you’re smart you buy a $7 digital membership too.
