IRIS HYBRIDS: Introduction

I've been hybridizing almost from the time I began gardening in the Newport area, working to develop veggies and flowers that could handle our weather extremes and short growing season. Little did I know that crosses made in an attempt to save the gene pools of two unidentified irises in 1992 would be the beginning of a larger study on evolution by hybridization.

Unlike the more familiar type of species crosses that appear to be a blend of both parents and are usually sterile, fertile F1 hybrids are rarely obvious. As a rule, the less obvious a first generation seedling is about being hybrid, the more fertile it is. These unbalanced hybrids allow beneficial traits to be incorporated into the parental species and usually begin to show traits from the silent parent in the F2s or F3s with some dramatic leaps showing up even longer down the line.

My initial insights about how and why fertile species hybrids occur has led to ideas about the real relationships of some species, the nature of the species barrier, and more. I won't go into that right now, but do offer some information about and images of some of the hybrid iris families under study.

Please note that most of these pages were written in 2004 just as life took some interesting turns. I'm only now beginning to define a new path for myself and my garden. With luck, I should be back to hybridizing this coming season.



Ensiberians
Fertile hybrids from a cross of Japanese and Siberian irises bred for poorer soil and considerably less water than purebred JIs and a lot of Siberians. This section also includes information and a link to
SHAPE SHIFTER an advanced fertile hybrid from ((JI x SIB) X I. pseudacorus).

Sibtosas
Poor luck with registered cultivars prompted us to try building our own from Siberians and Setosas known to do well here. As long as we were working with this cross, it seemed natural to shoot for fertile diploids.
SKY WINGS X setosa canadensis. and F2 seedlings.
FLIGHT OF BUTTERFLIES X setosa canadensis
I. setosa canadensis X FLIGHT OF BUTTERFLIES and the F2 seedlings.

I. cristata X MDB
We'd hoped to produce something with the delicate beauty of the Dwarf Crested and the sun tolerance of the bearded. It didn't work out that way.

I. pseudacorus X I. fulva
Though most of the LAs are perfectly hardy this far north, they are a gopher magnet. Gophers don't seem to find pseudacorus palatable, so we decided to try to build a new family of hybrids.