Do You Want to Hybridize Pacific Coast Irises? Really?
By Diamond Bobby and Diamond Sarah PhD
So, you want to hybridized pacific coast irises? Why? Do you know that from crossing two pacific coast irises to really see the results take more like three years. Sometimes a few will have their first bloom in two years but to really see how well they grow or not and flower you’re looking at 3 years. After you’ve spent 3 years on this project how would you define success?
I’d suggest two criteria: first the new iris produces a unique and attractive flower. If the flower looks like someone else’s we’ll who cares and why go to the bother? The second criteria and more important as my late buddy Prof. Richard Richards used to say is “growability”. He used to say the world is full of beautiful irises but will it grow? This second criteria for me, in Southern California is way more difficult to achieve since we’re we’ll south of the native range of any of our native irises. (Ok, I. hartwegii does grow in the San Bernadino Mountains but not near here)
Here’s somewhat of a case study
Several years ago, I crossed ‘Ocean Blue’ – an absolutely beautiful blue Ghio iris and big award winner with ‘Now Showing’. Given my random record keeping I must have done this in 2019.
I was operating on a smaller scale then and it looks like only a handful of that cross “made it” two or three years to reach “first bloom”. Of those three only
one persisted and was unusually vigorous with other really desirable characteristics. The desirable characteristics were that it had compact shiny green foliage all year and produced lots of new rhizomes – a good and expanding grower. What next?
After watching for a couple more years (observing is probably a better word) I started dividing it, growing for a couple more years, dividing again …until in 2025, my friend Jeff, our Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris Seed Exchange chairperson said I need to register some of these. This one is registered as ‘Pacific Lightning’.
As They Say….and there’s more….
Generally, if there is such a thing, I should have crossed ‘Pacific Lightning’ with another one of our pacific coast irises….should have but didn’t at least not that I know of. Instead, what I did was to collect seeds from ‘Pacific Lightning’ that resulted from open pollination. The theory being that if you have something that’s exceptional it’s offspring should also be exceptional. I did this in 2022, a lot of this. So far, the results have been really positive. Of the 200+ that I have potted up into 3-gallon pots we got our first 7 or so to bloom. Haven’t lost any over their second summer. With rare exception they appear to be excellent growers. There also a pretty wide distribution of colors/patterns too just from these 7.
The other 193, I would expect to bloom this year with some more we added /potted up this fall. I also have about another 400 in 2” rose pots most of which will likely bloom this year I just won’t be able to learn as much about them when the flower in a smaller container.
This sort of thing is not a short-term project. It’s over years but it’s very exciting when you get and exceptional result, makes it all worthwhile. There is also a certain satisfaction when people put some of my “creations” in their garden. It also helps if you forget about the several years it took to get there. Or, there’s always plan “B”. Plan “B” you just plant them out, let the bees do what the bee’s do and let nature take over.
Still, I’m reminded of this phrase, “in theory, theory and practice should be the same. In practice they are not.” Yogi Berra
