Reddish, Redder, Red––A Short History of Selecting for Red in PCI Flowers

Kathleen Sayce

Recent Pacifica Iris selections are starting to look very red, but first selections of this rich color appeared decades ago in mid 20th Century hybrids. 

PCI 'Claremont Indian' R. by Lee Lenz,
photo from SPCNI photo collection. 

PCI 'Claremont Indian' was registered in 1956. Here's Dr. Richard Richards' notes about early reds,

 "The first "red" iris I ever saw was Dr. Lee Lenz's Claremont Indian. He produced it in the 50s, in a cross of innominata and probably douglasiana. 

"It was the foundation for the

reddish irises that appeared in Southern California, such as 'Pasadena Indian' and 'Native Princess' by George Stambach.

PCI 'Native Princess' by George Stambach, 1964

"About the same time Ghio introduced 'Emigrant', from seed I believe that

came from Hargreaves. Spelling approximate. From that iris came the Ghio reds. Of course hybridizers were using both 'Claremont Indian' and 'Emigrant' right away."

PCI' Emigrant', R. Joe Ghio, 1981

The early reds had species-like petals, much narrower than present-day hybrids, with reduced ruffling and narrow standards and style arms. Signals were typical of species, edging and veining were both restrained, and flowers tended to hold up well in inclement weather. 

By the late 20th century, ruffles, wide flower parts (falls, standards and style arms), bright colors and increased complexity in patterns on falls were, and still are, developing from year to year. 

I'm not going to show all fifty plus 'red' PCI selections (you can look them up in the Iris Encyclopedia), but will list some of them, focusing on those that are important for breeding, toughness, depth and complexity of color, and other desirable traits. 

PCI 'Indian Maiden', by George Stambach, R. 1971. 

'Indian Maiden' was another Stambach hybrid that showed complex dark veining on a lighter background. This patterning is an attractive feature of new 21st century hybrids, in a variety of color combinations. 

1970s registrations include:

'Sundance Eight' (e. Molseed, 1979), 'Verdugo' (Phillips, 1971)

PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' (R. Ghio 1982) is still an useful parent for new hybrids. Its petal colors are intense, and carry forward into new hybrids a distinctive deep color saturation and sturdy petal structure. 

PCI' Mission Santa Cruz' R. 1982, Joe Ghio

In England, Marjorie Brummitt produced a series of Banbury hybrids during the latter part of the 20th Century, including 'Banbury Gem' (1972) and 'Banbury Melody' (1983). 

Other 1980-90s 'red' registrations include: 

'Adept' (Ghio, 1997), 'Battle Alert' (Ghio, 1995––and the name should be a clue that this is one of the very dark red hybrids), 'Common Sense' (Ghio , 1997), 'Endless' (Ghio, 1985), 'Escalona' (Ghio, 1994), 'Gamay' (Terry Aitken, 1995), 'Junipero' (Ghio, 1989), 'Mission Santa Clara' (Ghio, 1992), 'Opulence' (Elaine Bessette, 1996), 'Riva' (Ghio, 1988), 'Town Belle' (Elyse Hill, 1998), and 'Upper Echelon' (Ghio, 1988). 

PCI 'Salsa Picante', R. 2014, Emma Elliott,
photo courtesy Emma Elliott, Wild
Ginger Farms

'Salsa Picante' looks back at 'Emigrant' in a modern, sturdy plant with flowers held upright.

Two recent introductions by Debby Cole, 'Red Delicious' and 'Scarlet Woman' also edge closer to solidly red flowers. 

PCI 'Dracularity', another Debby Cole introduction, is an intensely colored flower, reminding us of the color blast that comes from well saturated petals, in this case with light edges. 

PCI 'Dracularity' R. 1998, Debby Cole

PCI 'Tulum', R. 1996, Joe Ghio.

 This article ends with another hybrid from Joe Ghio, 'Tulum', which shows more ruffles, wider flower parts, and in this hybrid, a dark signal and veining on a lighter background. It's a lovely hybrid with a velvety surface and in full sun, a pinkish red. 


Most of the photos in this article are from the SPCNI photo collection, with thanks to Ken Walker, Recorder, for sharing them to this blog. Emma Elliott shared  'Salsa Picante'. I also thank Richard Richards for his comments on early red PCI hybrids. 

Celebrating Autumn: Dark Red PCI Flowers

Kathleen Sayce

Red is not a natural color for iris flowers, and so it is of course one of the most sought after goals among Iris breeders. 

PCI 'Wine and Cheese' by Vernon Wood,
2001 

PCI 'Gold Streaker' by Vernon Wood, 2003

Flower color in the genus Iris comes from two different parts of cells in flower petals, cell sap and plastids. The pH in the cell affects the sap colors. Growing temperatures, soil pH, and soil nutrition may also affect colors in both areas of the cell.  

PCI 'New Blood', by Joe Ghio,
2005

One color portion comes from the cellular sap, the fluid inside each cell in the flower. This sap is the source of cool colors––blues, lavenders, purples. Cell sap colors are very sensitive to pH. 

The other color portion is in cell organelles, plastids, which are the source for warm colors, primarily yellows and oranges. 

PCI 'Pop Idol'

For flower colors that nature did not design, breeders tweak the balance between colors in the cell sap and colors in the plastids. 

Well, that is the outcome of what they do. 

In the garden, breeders select, year after year, for the plants that come closest to the colors they are looking for. There is also some serendipity––the breeder might not have been looking for brilliantly dark red falls with golden streaks, but when these appear, wow!

PCI 'War Zone' by Joe Ghio, 2008

While looking for Pacifica Iris to feature in this article, I requested red photos from SPCNI members and the photo collection.

Ninety plus images later, my head reeling from an abundance of choices, I decided to post them in several sets, sorted by hue and intensity. 

As we've just passed the Autumn celebrations of Halloween, Day of the Dead, and Samhain, this article features dark, intensely red to near black PCI flowers. 

PCI 'Red Flag Warning' by Joe Ghio, 2010

Joseph Ghio has been breeding more intensely colored PCI for years, see the hue intensity ramp up from 'New Blood' and 'Pop Idol' to 'War Zone' and 'Red Flag Warning'. I live on the Pacific Northwest Coast, and we've already had a few red flag storms blast through this fall, so I appreciate this name! 

Intense reds don't stop here. They keep going to near-blacks and dark red purples.  

PCI 'Brand Name' by Joe Ghio, 2009

PCI 'Brand Name' has intense coloration in all flower parts, the signal is small, even the style arms are darkening up. 

It is clear that near black flowers aren't too far away. Pigment levels are getting very intense. Not surprisingly, the names are getting intense too!

PCI 'Battle Line' by Joe Ghio, 2004

My former plant physiology instructors would roll over in their graves if I failed to mention green plastids.  Green plastids are in all plant cells, and are called chloroplasts. They contain chlorophyll and accessory pigments, and capture light to make chemical energy to fuel plants. These green plastids largely disappear in mature flowers, as the flowers take on other pigments, stop growing, and expand into open flowers ready for pollination. 

OK, duty done, next, on to more reds, pinks, and red-orange-yellow PCI flowers. 


All of the photos in this article are from the SPCNI Photo Collection, shared by Ken Walker, SPCNI Recorder to this blog. 

Autumn: Transplanting time for Pacifica Iris

Kathleen Sayce 

September 20, 2015

Many irises are easy to transplant at any time of year. Dig them up, divide, cart to new homes and tuck in. Clip off some leaves to reduce moisture loss while the new roots form, and away they go. Not so for PCIs. Treat them this way, and they go root tips up before you can find your watering can.

Healthy PCI transplants:  new fans, and healthy new white roots. Both of these I. douglasiana pieces are ready to plant. 

There are two times of year to successfully transplant PCIs: Autumn and Spring.

At these times, PCI roots are in active growth. Check the roots, removing soil gently around the base of a fan or two. If there are white roots, one to four inches long, then get out the shovel and start digging. It's time.

New fans on a PCI, but no new roots yet; this plant needs to wait a few weeks before being divided.

Why Autumn and Spring for root growth? Pacifica Iris are native to the West Coast of North America, which has a Mediterranean climate––during the drought period each summer, these and other native species go dormant. In mild winter climates, PCI may have live roots all winter, but they dry down and wait out dry summers.

Summer drought duration depends on latitude, the farther south you are, the longer the duration, which varies from less than three months to more than ten months on the West Coast. I garden at 46°N, so droughts usually last less than three months, though this year it was more than five.

If you water regularly, PCI initiate new roots earlier in the fall than do those depending on rain. You can divide and transplant much earlier in the fall and later in the spring.

This flat of PCI seedlings has been watered regularly all summer, and is ready to move into the garden.

PCI seedlings in pots are tough, and can stand being transplanted several times in the first year or two of life. Even larger plants, one to five gallons, can withstand transplanting slightly outside the Autumn or Spring periods. These have all had regular water, as they must to live in pots.

Other tips:

Mulch after planting to keep roots cool

Amend soil with carbon, such as compost and biochar

Move plants on cool cloudy damp days rather than on hot sunny days

Add 'Superthrive' (a registered vitamin formula for plants) to the watering can

Water well for a few weeks after planting

Use a dilute liquid fertilizer when watering

Every Autumn I host a 'Come and Dig PCI' day in my garden, to share out plants to other gardens in my community. I checked my plants this week; new fans are starting to form, and new roots are short. I'll wait a week or two, until new roots are more than an inch long. 

There are exceptions; one variety has long white roots and could be divided now, but it will tolerate moving in a few weeks. The seedling PCI can be planted anytime from now until early November. They are much tougher than fan sections, which is why growing PCI from seed is so successful for many gardeners. Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris will hold its seed exchange from 1 November to the end of the year, so now is the time to be thinking about what species and hybrids you'd like to grow in your garden from seed. 

New white roots, this PCI is ready for a new home.

For western gardeners, Autumn is the best time to plant many native plants, not just Pacifica Iris. Trees, shrubs, perennials, ferns and grasses all do well if planted now (late September to early November), as the weather cools and moisture arrives from the Pacific Ocean over western North America. This gives the plants a jump on growth for the coming year by establishing good root systems first, with much less water use now and in coming years. 

Yellow-flowered Pacifica Iris, from species to modern hybrids

Kathleen Sayce

Starting with yellow flowers, one of the most common colors in wild Pacific Iris populations, I will work through the color spectrum in coming months, though not in strict rainbow order! 

Ken Walker, SPCNI's photo archivist, gave a talk on this topic at AIS's 2012 Convention in Ontario, CA. I will include photos from that talk when I get to some colors and patterns.

Species of all colors tend to narrow petals with a few veins, a small signal, and no to limited ruffling. Hybrids developed with broader falls, more ruffled edges, larger style arms and standards, and with a dizzying array of veining patterns, larger signals, multiple colors in the signals, and slashes down the center of the falls.

So, beginning with yellow, I start with the Golden Iris.

Iris innominata in a garden setting, this one has fairly narrow petals and brown veins on the falls.

Iris innominata, Golden Iris, is one of the gorgeous species in the Pacifica group. [OK, there are no non-gorgeous PCIs, some are simply gaudier than others.] In the wild, I. innominata petal color varies from white through pale yellow to dark gold and almost orange. Veining varies from almost none to orange, red, dark red or brown.  Wild petal width varies from very narrow to moderately wide and slightly ruffled. Wild plants are small, usually well under one foot (25 cm) in height. Flowers are usually held above the foliage. Foliage is dark green, and evergreen. This is a very attractive garden plant even as a wild species. 

Unregistered PCI Burnt Sugar is a slightly huskier innominata-type with a more complex signal, dark red veins, and larger leaves and flowers. 

Yellow flowers are also seen in wild populations of I. chrysophylla, I. douglasiana, I. tenax and in natural hybrids. Garden-selected plants that range from pale yellow to dark yellow have been developed in the past century, with the brakes off on veining, ruffling, signal size and color, and other traits.

PCI 'Garden Delight' is a lighter yellow with even more complex signal and veins on falls. Flower stalks tend to flop over, however, so it's best grown with other plants to provide support. 

As breeders worked on yellows, petals got larger, wider, and more ruffled, and signals and veining patterns increased in complexity. 

PCI 'Sierra Amarillo' is darker yellow than 'Garden Delight', and is also floppy in the flower bed. The flowers are delightful, however, and worth growing with other plants to hold them up. 

Some new seedlings from tall-yellow seed from Joe Ghio include the following flower, which is still being evaluated in my garden. 

This Ghio-sourced seedling has more ruffles and delivers a nice blast of light yellow.

Other new hybrids include one seen here before, an unregistered yellow Pacifica Iris that delivers floral complexity on a sturdy plant, with nicely upright flowers, not too ruffly. It even holds up in the rain fairly well. 

This pale yellow PCI has a complex signal with multicolored veins and a hint of blue on the falls; see this on the right hand flower in particular. Flowers are slightly ruffled, but not solid 'dinner-plates' of overlapping petals. No name yet––I'm pondering Golden Dawn, or Golden Twilight. It's nicely upright in flower. 

I return to judging guidelines regularly to remind myself that good Iris flowers have to hold up in weather, and be strong plants, not simply have beautiful flowers. Garry Knipe and I talked a couple of years ago about a sturdy yellow PCI that would flower in early spring with the daffodils. I can't wait to see this one!

First Pacifica Iris Flowers

April 2015                                                                                           By Kathleen Sayce

The first PCI flowers are always exciting, whether hybrids new to the garden, or seedlings that are flowering for the first time.

Let the record show that something (I suspect a chipmunk) ate the bud of one of my earliest flowering new seedlings, so that 'first' flower will have to wait a year. Also, Garry Knipe's winter flowering hybrid PCI 'Premonition of Spring' flowered from mid fall right throughout winter, and is sporadically flowering even now. In this post, other new PCI flowers are featured. 

The grand old hybrid PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' opened its first flowers in early April, and the deep velvet rose color reminded me again why this hybrid is so good for breeding and enjoying.

PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' is a lovely rose pink, with a velvety tone to the falls, which have dark veins and a small touch of gold. 

PCI 'Harry's Rootbeer' has PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' genes, and opened about the same time. Slightly darker with wider petals, the plants are sturdy and on the tall side, perfect for a few feet back in the border. This plant is from Matilija Nursery in southern California.

PCI 'Harry's Rootbeer' was developed by a southern California grower, and the toughness for hot dry conditions has translated well to the Pacific Northwest coast. 

Two PCI seedlings from a pod parent PCI 'Violet Blush' are being evaluated. The first flower has slightly wider petals and interesting but not outstanding color. The pedicels are long, and the flowers tend to flop. It's probably coming out soon; in a wet climate floppiness is not a good character to encourage.

This seedling of pod parent PCI 'Violet Blush' has interesting purple, pink and yellow flowers, but the flowers flop over on long pedicels; the plants are sturdy, but the flower stalks are not. 

The other seedling from PCI 'Violet Blush' has more of a species-type flower, narrower falls, standards and style arms, but the color is nice, a mix of purple and lavender. The plant is sturdy and upright, and the flowers are held up well also. It's going to stay for a few more years.

Another seedling from the same pod parent as above, this one is species-like with smaller flowers. The plants are sturdy, the flowers are on strong stems and nicely upright. The plus for a windy wet climate is that the flowers wear well in the rain. 

Seedlings of PCI 'Santa Rosalita' are also flowering now. Rain damaged the first plant's flowers so much that it was hard to evaluate them this year. A second plant of the same seed lot was luckier to open its flowers in a drier period, and they are lovely, wide, open, held well, on a medium sized plant.

A seedling of PCI 'Santa Rosalita', flowering for the first time this spring. The plant has better vigor than other siblings, and the flowers are large, ruffly, peachy-pink, and nicely complex with dark veins and a lovely purple and orange signal. It probably won't hold up in the rain, but it sure is gorgeous.

The star of my early spring irises is a hybrid from Richard Richards, who gardens in southern California and has spent decades developing truly tough PCI for hot dry climates.  That toughness appears to translate well into the Pacific Northwest. This PCI opened its first flower in early April, and is definitely a keeper. Good job, Richard!  

Richard Richards sent me this lovely hybrid last fall. I overwintered it in the cold frame and planted it out a few weeks ago. I was very pleased to see a bud a few weeks ago, and it opened in early April. The plant is sturdy, the flower is quite lovely, and as it's raining right now, I will see tomorrow how well the flower does with precipitation. 

Which PCIs are blooming in your garden this month?

Watching for first Pacifica Iris flowers, or the Uncertainty of Gardening

Kathleen Sayce

Over the years, a variety of invertebrates and vertebrate flower-eating varmints have made their presences known in my garden. 

PCI 'Finger Pointing' is a lovely early flowering PCI, but fails to flower in many years due to wet windy weather. Seed set is also erratic due to vagaries of weather. 

Slugs and snails normally disdain irises in general and Pacifica Iris in particular, but not when there are young, tender leaves to be had early in the year, or tasty young flower buds. One of the better reasons to pull old leaves and winter debris from the iris beds is to reduce hiding places for slugs and snails.

A tidied up PCI plant. Not shown:  the five small snails and slugs that were removed with the dead leaves and winter debris. 

Then there are Stellar's Jays, which find germinating iris seeds and seedlings to be a delicacy. Black-tailed Deer also like Pacifica iris shoots, at least the first few mouthfuls, before they start spitting them out and leaving them alone.

And then the chipmunks moved in, capable of disbudding entire flower beds in one night. It's enough to make me think about an outside cat!

Right in the center of this image, the former flower bud, with the pedicle still visible between the bracts. Guilty party––a chipmunk. 

Jays and other seed eating birds drove me to use wire mesh to cover seed boxes. Once the seedlings are more than four inches tall, even the deer leave them alone, but until then these must be like alfalfa sprouts to them, young and tasty.

The weather doesn't help. Heavy rain and hailstorms in April and May often end the flower display from many a well known hybrid Pacifica Iris. I've used temporary covers over plants so that I can at least get a few photos of flowers. But there's a maxim that if the weather is wet enough to ruin early flowers, then protecting them won't help seed set, because the bees don't like rain and hail any more than the flowers do.

Rain screen deployed over a PCI plant. 

The flowering sequence at my latitude (46 N) is something like this: Modern PCI hybrids begin flowering in April, with the exception of PCI 'Premonition of Spring', which flowers off and on from September to April. This group continues to flower into May. In late April to May, many older Iris douglasiana selections come into flower, including PCI 'Canyon Snow' and 'Cape Ferrello'. In June, species irises begin flowering, including Iris tenax, I chrysophylla and I. innominata. A patch of I. tenax x I. innominata plants regularly flower into late June, and sometimes into early July. Some dwarf I. douglasiana plants also flower in June.

PCI 'Blue Plate Special' is ready to flower in early April. 

At the same time, Iris tenax is just getting started with new leaves. The difference is that the latter plant will flower better, and probably set more seeds, by flowering in June. In my climate, that makes a huge difference. 

Given a tendency lately for weather to be too wet in April, and too hot in May for good seed set, often it's the late flowering species and species crosses that do the best. I've come to treasure the durable late flowering plants, because they are more reliable than the gorgeous, early flowering hybrids.

PCI 'Blue Plate Special' in bud––a beautiful sight, but will there be flowers to follow? Only Pluvius, the god of rain, knows. 

Part Two: Remineralizing soils and the PCI response in my Garden

Kathleen Sayce

Yes, as a result of my soil experiments there were more flowers than ever in my garden in 2013. But it's the number of Pacific Coast Iris (PCI) pods that was astounding. In prior years I'd seen around 50-70 seed pods in total. I know this because I use organza mesh bags on ripening pods to keep them from tossing seeds all over the garden, and I could count the bags as they went out. I'd purchased 400 bags and used 70 in 2012, on every pod I could find. And this had seemed typical at the time, based on prior years' seed sets.

Tools of the seed collecting trade:  mesh bags, paper bags, and somewhere in the bottom of the basket, a writing implement and clippers. 

By 2013 I used every mesh bag, some of them several times, shifting from early ripening pods to later ripening pods. A friend found a few more bags at a yard sale and gave them to me; I used them as well. I cut pods off many plants, needing at most 15 pods of each variety for the SPCNI seed exchange, and threw away at least 100 pods. So in one twelve-month period, my irises went from producing around 70 pods, to producing around 500 pods. The only thing that changed was the soil's mineral nutrition.

Some of the extra pods.  Look closely at the top of the image to see seeds spilling out in the lawn. Just a few of the many pods I tossed in 2014, from the plants that set seeds.

There was also a major weather difference that reduced the seed set for many PCI. Many of my well established plants are hybrids that flower in May and early June. A typical year has PCI in flower from April until late June or early July. We had a late wet spring in 2013. I did not get any seeds from the early flowering PCI. The later flowering species and species crosses that bloomed in mid June were more successful, as they flowered in drier weather, and bumblebees could actually get to their flowers. So this astounding pod production was despite very poor early-season weather for seed setting.

One hybrid I very much wanted seed from, 'Finger Pointing', did not set any seed at all!

PCI 'Finger Pointing' managed to hit the wrong weather to set seed in 2014. 

In 2014, I resampled the soil, had another mix of minerals formulated based on the new soil test, put these out in winter––this time we did it all in one application, and then I again waited for spring. I also added compost to most beds, and continued to plant new plants with a mix of compost and biochar. My hope is that these high-test carbon compounds will help with mineral retention in coming years. Ongoing soil tests will tell me how successful this is.

Again the weather did not cooperate. In spring 2014, my area had an early, very warm hot spell that lasted several weeks, with temperatures in the low 90s to low 100s––for the South Coast of Washington, it was hot. In response, irises that normally flower over three to four months all flowered in less than six weeks. The bumblebees were badly overworked! Early flowering (April to early May) PCI responded with heavy seed sets and a short intense flowering period. This unseasonal heat was followed by cool rainy weather in late May into June, so late flowering PCI did not set as much seed, the reverse of the prior year, though the tenax x innominata plants again set many extra pods. I once again used all my mesh bags, and again cut off more than 100 extra flower spikes with more than 200 pods to reduce final seed volumes on those plants that did set seed.

PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' is an old, tried and still true iris for gardens. Even this one failed to set any seed in 2014. 

Observant readers will note that I have not written about Nitrogen or N-P-K formulas. I did not add N or N-P-K in 2013 or 2014. A properly mineralized soil does not need much N. When healthy, the soil contains microorganisms that fix N and make it available to plants. There's another very important reason to not add N: Nitrogen fertilizers stimulate microbes to metabolize carbon compounds in the soil. My soil is acidic sand; I do not want to lose any carbon if I can find a way avoid it. Also, post World War II, the use of N fertilizers has wreaked havoc with historic soil carbon levels around the world. So I save money by not using standard N-P-K mixes, and instead spend it on custom blends.

If you read about historic versus current levels of minerals in vegetables, it's staggering to learn that mineral levels in food plants have dropped by 3-10X from those of a century ago. This bears directly on food health for all of us, as well as flowering and seed setting capacity for those plants we eat, not to mention those we grow for pleasure. It seems clear that improving minerals in soils leads to improved seed sets (see Jeff Lowenfel's Teaming with Minerals).

Other gardeners have commented on my use of inoculated wood chips. Most native plants in the West, especially in forest and woodland conditions, grow with soil fungi. In my garden,it is a measure of success to have mushrooms growing among ornamental plants. When I dig up iris plants, I see abundant feeder roots interacting with aged wood chips and soil fungi. In Fall 2013, chanterelle fungi were fruiting on a garden path next to several iris plants; this path is layered with several years worth of wood chips. Success!

In Winter 2015 I'm about to sample my soil again, and take the results to my local soil consultant. I can't wait to see how my PCI respond this spring. No guesses on the weather, though. In the past two years, I've seen both early and late flowering plants shut out by weather from successful seed sets. What I do know is that those PCI that manage to set seed are likely to set a lot of it!