Successful Crosses in 2004
Wow, I can't say enough about how terrible the 2004 season was for me.  There were many pitfalls for me to deal with, primarily the very late Spring we had.  This gave the Irises very little time to produce any foliage before the stalks started to emerge.  Fans, in some cases were only 6 inches high when the stalks came up which didn't give the plants enough time to prepare.  Bloom percentages were terrible and then the borers came in and worked their magic.  The Iris borer is a perennial pest but this year I noticed a smaller borer that eats through the spathe and devours the stigma and sometimes the entire flower.  The ones that did bloom were almost impossible to hybridize with.  Because I had been feeding the birds all winter, they decided to hang around and I noticed that the yellow ones took a fancy to tasting unopened iris buds.   So you guessed it, it was tough enough to make me consider quitting Irises all together but I did finally manage a few uninteresting crosses and am preparing to deal with the borers as I type thing now in April 2005.


                                                                              
 
Cross  CCommentsomments
 
 
Celebration Song x Doctor No
 Just working with what I had
 Thin Blue Line x Zebra Blush
 An attempt to get a better varigated foliage TB
Canaveral X Doctor No
 No real expectations here
Fancy Woman x Thin Blue Line
 Beautiful bloom x a beast of a grower
Stairway to Heaven x Spartan
 Two good garden Irises
Stairway to Heaven x
foolin around
Stairway to Heaven x Unicorn
 For undiluted SA genes, lets see what happens
(Sky Hooks x Thornbird) x Doctor No
 My efforts to concentrate SA genes

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