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!

Part One: Remineralizing Soils––A Winter reading assignment for Pacific Coast Iris Growers

Kathleen Sayce, January 31, 2015

Originally published in Pacific Iris, Spring 2013, and updated Winter 2015

In 2010 I began to learn about providing better nutrition to soils so that plants will grow in optimal conditions. Healthy plants not only overcome herbivory, disease, drought and other adverse conditions to flourish, they grow larger, flower more and set more seeds. These plants have higher levels of secondary plant compounds, sugars, and other metabolites. Optimal nutrition for healthy soils to produce healthy plants is not a matter of applying N-P-K fertilizers; instead the focus is on balancing minerals and adding carbon compounds.

Systematically testing soils is the first step; the second step is adding those minerals that are low or absent from your soil. Adding additional organic matter, or carbon, in the form of compost, fungi-inoculated wood chips and biochar is another good step for some soils, particularly temperate forest soils. Plus patience, and resampling soils every year as you change the mineral composition. I was excited to see how my plants would respond, even though I grow few food plants (some herbs, a few parsley plants––all plants that deer usually avoid).

In my garden, historically I used compost and biochar every time I planted a new iris. Every two or three years, a new layer of compost was added over each garden area. I've also used wood chips, preferably red alder chips, aged for a year so that fungi have inoculated them before they go into the garden beds. I've done this for more than 20 years, and until 2010, I thought I was doing pretty well. That year I began reading about minerals, soil carbon, and soil health.

First, I read the latest book from Steve Solomon on vegetable gardening, The Intelligent Gardener. Steve lives and gardens in Tasmania; in a former life he lived in Oregon, where he started Territorial Seeds, a vegetable seed company for the Pacific Northwest. He and his family lived on what he could grow in the garden for several years. He composted, irrigated, added manures, and generally followed traditional organic farming guidelines. It took him decades to learn about how to make high quality composts, and even longer to learn about soil minerals and soil health. Now in his 70s, Steve's latest book is a tour de force for gardeners, distilling a lifetime of gardening knowledge for all of us. Whether you garden for pleasure, or food, or both, read this book.

Second, I read Michael Astera's book on soil nutrition and cation-base exchanges, The Ideal Soil: A handbook for the new agriculture. IMO, a gardener with high school chemistry will understand both Solomon's and Astera's books. 

For a third read on this subject, there is Jeff Lowenfel's Teaming with Minerals, a companion to Teaming with Microbes. Read both of them too.

Jeff Lowenfel's books on soil health are
great reading for gardeners. 

Living in a high rainfall area, it makes sense to me that water soluble nutrients are low in my soil; the opportunities for them to mobilize are too good. Yet compost and well-inoculated wood chips are not be putting back everything that my soil needs in the way of minerals. In fact, water soluble nutrients probably wave at plant roots as they wash past during the wet season. Hi! Good-bye! And they are gone.

In 2012 I took a bold step forward, and sampled my soil. The samples were sent to a soil testing lab. A bold step for me, that is; thousands of farmers and gardeners do this every year. The report came back, full of numbers, a few were high, most were low. The conclusion was that my soil had three minerals in sufficient or excessive amounts (Iron, Zinc and Magnesium). All other elements were nonexistent or at very low levels.

The facts:  too much Mg, Fe and Zn, not enough Ca, and some minerals were incredibly low.

I measured the area of all my garden beds, and took the soil sample results plus the area measurement to a local soil consultant to have a custom blend of minerals formulated for my garden. The soil consultant avoided Calcium compounds that might change the pH of my naturally acidic soil or add more Magnesium. 

My soil consultant did the calculations by hand, but there are websites where you can plug in your numbers and have the needed amounts of minerals calculated for you. For example, http://growabundant.com has an online calculator. 

We settled on a formulation that would build up minerals over several years, not trying to bring this garden to an optimal mineral level in one year, but rather to bring it up more gently over three to five years. It was a cautious first step, in hindsight. I went home with three bags, to apply in midwinter, late winter and early spring.

To learn what happened, see Part Two later this week.

PCI Seed Germination Tricks

Kathleen Sayce

It's the wintery time of year in the northern hemisphere, when gardeners think about the coming growing season, and when iris seeds are distributed from seed exchanges. When PCI seeds are fresh, plant them immediately, and within weeks seedlings will appear. But who has fresh seeds? To send seeds to a seed exchange, they must be thoroughly dry, or they will mold in the seed packets. Alert readers will recall that I wrote about this last fall. Once PCI seeds are dry, they may have to be coaxed into germination. If those seeds are more than three years old, the coaxing might have to be pretty thorough.

PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' is an older variety, and one I return to again and again for new seedlings.  The plants are sturdy in the coastal Pacific Northwest climate, and flower color is dark and near-red. Unfortunately, in 2014 I did not get any seed from this plant. 

Some general seed starting tips:

First, PCI seeds don't like 'warm' conditions for germination. 'Warm' when compared to many cultivated perennials is 60 F and above––in a cool to warm greenhouse, for example. PCI seeds germinate best between 40-55 F; the actual temperature varies with the species. Tenax and innominata like cooler temperatures, munzii definitely prefers the warmer end. Most hybrids germinate towards the warmer end of the range, around 50 F, though it's always better to stay on the cool side with any PCI seed lot for which the genetic source is unknown.

Second, if the seeds are truly fresh, and were not completely dried, then plant them immediately in well drained potting soil. Soak the pot with several waterings, put them somewhere bright and cool, and stand back. They will be up within weeks.

Third, if the seeds are old, particularly more than three years old, it may help to presoak them in fresh water. Presoaking can be in a dish of water, a small plastic bag, or in a mesh bag hung in the water tank of your toilet. Keeping the seeds at 40-50 F while presoaking may also help; my soaking seeds are kept in an unheated shop that stays between 40-55 degrees all winter.


Fourth, scarify them, removing some of the seed coat by gently rubbing the seeds between two sheets of fine sandpaper or scrubbing them gently in a food mill. 

A food mill is a great tool to rough up seed coats. Put the seeds in, rotate the handle 10-20 times, and shake out the bits of seed coat that were scraped off. 

I've tried one, two, three, up to thirty days of soaking, and also hung mesh bags of seeds in the water tank of the toilet. By weighing the seeds day by day as they soaked, I tracked the uptake of water, watched the seed coat loosen, and in some cases, saw the radicle (the proto-root) emerge.

Yes, those are emerging proto-roots and shoots on PC Iris seeds. They were scarified and soaked in water, and burst out of their seed coats, ready to grow. 

I wrote about these methods for the SPCNI Almanac in Spring 2012, if you would like to read about the details of my tests. [This winter the SPCNI web manager will post back issues of the Almanac and Pacific Iris on the SPCNI website (www.pacificcoastiris.org ); past years' issues will be available to the public, including the first 40 years of the Almanac.]

Here's a new method to try––one I plan to test next year: Soak seeds in cold tea. [I decaffeinate tea at home by steeping loose tea leaves in boiling water, use a French coffee press (or a sieve), time the steep for 45 seconds, pour off the water (save it for seed soaking), add fresh hot water to steep for the cup of tea to drink.] When soaking Iris seeds, change the cold (not hot!) tea every day. For some kinds of irises, this acidic, tannin-rich water seems to help remove germination inhibitors. And it allows you to enjoy teas even when you can not tolerate caffeine––which happened to me last year very abruptly after a lifetime of drinking fully-loaded black teas.

Choices for potting PCI seeds are wide. Any container that can hold potting soil and drain off water will work. I've migrated to large rectangular styrofoam boxes (AKA fish boxes) over the past few years. I punch holes in the bottom, fill with a 1:1 mix of coarse pumice and potting soil, put the seeds on the top in rows, add labels, and a covering of chicken grit (usually granite). Then the planters go outside for the year––and no matter what the weather, they stay outside. I put them on the east side of my house where they get rain, wind, snow, a half day of sun, a rain of conifer needles, the occasional tree branch, and are close to a hose bib for summer watering. The seeds and subsequent seedlings spend a year in this container. This way, they have cool deep root runs, and are fine for their second winter. They are planted out the second spring, about 15 months after planting.

Styrofoam boxes have drain holes; there's a layer of chicken grit (in this case a reddish granite) over the top, and then wire mesh to keep the squirrels and jays from the seedlings––both of these 'varmints' like to eat sprouting Iris seeds. 

I practiced fall planting of seedlings for years, until I lost ninety percent of them a couple of years running to mid fall snow and freezing weather. Now I wait for early spring, and plant out sturdy year old plants instead.

Waiting for spring:  the next crop of PC Iris seedlings are ready to plant. Sturdy, healthy, they will be fine for the rest of winter in these styrofoam boxes, with 9-inch deep root runs and good drainage. 

My methods for seed germination are in place for the new year, including a test of a new method. What are you planning to do?  

Lifting, Dividing, and Transplanting Pacifica Iris

Kathleen Sayce

The seasonal forecast for the Pacific Northwest was for a mild, warm, drier-than-normal fall. Hmm. Warm, yes; dry, no. So far we've had a series of storms blow through, each one dropping around two inches of rain. For dry gardens (those that do not get additional irrigation water), this means that Pacifica Iris began putting out new roots a few weeks ago. New white roots means that these plants can be dug up and transplanted. 

'Premonition of Spring' in flower between storms; the flowers aren't perfect due to the weather and slugs, but provide a cheerful corner in the garden during winter. 

Pacifica Iris are notoriously fussy about being moved, particularly in climates with prolonged dry summers. I've mentioned before that checking the roots to make sure that there are 1-4 inch long white (live) roots is important for success. 

New roots on Pacifica Iris fans show that this plant is in active growth and can be moved. 

Today I went out between showers (the thunder, lightning and hail type of showers) to redo a densely overgrown patch of PCI seedlings. Let's not go into why I did not do this two or three years ago. As gardeners know, life often gets in the way of garden plans and ideal timing for gardening activities. 

There are five different irises in this patch:  four seedlings, one of which has not yet flowered, and one named variety. 

What a little procrastination can give you:  a near-solid mass of irises to separate and divide. If I'd waited another year, it might have been near-impossible to divide out the different seedlings. Spuria iris on the lower right (its long leaves were broken down in the last storm), 'Premonition of Spring' on the left, next to the cyclamen, and in the middle, three massively overgrown PCI seedlings. 

One of the seedlings is not going back into the garden. It came to me as orange-flowered I. innominata seed; by the second year it was clear that this seedling is really a Spuria Iris. So it's going south to Los Angeles, to a much warmer climate where it might actually flower.

The clue that this clump is not a Pacifica Iris:  the leaves were three to four times as tall as the other irises around it!

Pacifica Iris clump in the middle, Spuria clumps on the right with their leaves already partially cut back. 

Three of the seedlings are from open pollinated seeds from Debby Cole's garden on Mercer Island, Washington; the pod parent is her vivid PCI hybrid 'Egocentric'. I'm still evaluating the lavender flowered seedlings; the yellow seedling is a nice sturdy plant, and I'm sending starts to other gardens.

One of the lavender-flowered PCIs from an 'Ecocentric' pod parent seed lot. 

Another seedling from the same seed lot; sturdy short plant, waiting to see the flowers for one more season before I decide to keep or toss. 

A yellow flowered Pacifica seedling, pod parent, I. 'Egocentric', from Debby Cole.  This one I will keep. The plant is sturdy, the flowers are held well above the foliage, and are well shaped. 

The fifth iris clump in this patch is 'Premonition of Spring', Garry Knipe's winter flowering selection.  I divided this one into two smaller masses and replanted one near the other. Like Iris unguicularis, it flowers sporadically from fall through early spring. In fact, both clumps (POS and I. unguicularis) have buds or flowers right now, and will flower occasionally during fall-winter-spring months. I plan to move an I. unguicularis clump nearby. 

Once each clump is out of the ground, I use clippers to cut apart the fans. Sturdy rhizomes grow between groups of fans, and my hand clippers easily cut through them. 

A nice pile of more than one dozen fans are going to other gardens. 

After replanting, the plants have room. Next spring I'll be able to see the flowers on each plant more easily, evaluate them, and decide which seedlings to keep. I also found two mesh bags with seeds inside––these are going to be scattered in a patch of native grasses to naturalize.

Lifted, divided, and replanted, and ready to grow on this fall and into next spring.

I was done just in time to avoid the next shower!  

When Pacifica Iris Pods Are Ripe

Kathleen Sayce

Mid to late summer is exciting:  it's harvest time for Pacifica Iris pods. Some species irises shed seed by early July in my garden, including Iris tenax and I. innominata. These species often grow at high elevations in the wild, flower in May or June, and have ripe seed by mid July to early August. They waste no time cranking out the next generation. Other species take more time to ripen seeds, nine weeks instead of five to six weeks, including I. douglasiana. Pods often go through a color change as they ripen, from green to gold or yellow. Even when not opened, a yellow pod has mature seeds inside, ready to collect. 

Just a few weeks ago, seed pods were green. 

Iris pods are opening all over the garden by late July, when the mesh bags come into use. Here, all pods in this cluster have opened, the tips are spread on the upper two, and the bottom one has valves spread to show the seeds inside.

Mesh bags or nylon stockings are good devices to use to contain seeds and ensure that a gardener's work in crossing specific parents isn’t lost at the seed collection step. Saving even a few seeds from a choice cross can be important in a hybridizing program. 

I cut the stems and collect the pods, still in their mesh bags, to dry before taking out the seeds. The stems can be tied together with a wire tie or string, hung in a dry shady place, out of the sun and away from direct heat––just as you would dry herbs or flowers, or put into paper bags in a warm dry spot. After a few days, any pods that can open, have done so, and the seeds are ready to clean and package. 

A basket of treasure:  Ripe pods in paper bags, ready to dry indoors. 

Normally the valves separate from the pods, and the seeds break off and scatter. Occasionally pods stay closed or only partially open. Either the tip will not separate, or the sutures along the edges do not open.  When this happens, I use a knife or razor blade in a holder to cut the tip off, or cut along a suture line, being very careful to keep my fingers intact, and to not cut into seeds. Then I gently peel out the seeds.

Seeds go into a bowl. Use a large bowl that you can swirl seeds around in. This lets you blow or toss seeds outside to separate seeds from chaff and pod fragments. I also use a sieve to shake out fine bits if the pods are dirty. I clean the seeds and remove all non-seed bits and pieces, insects, et cetera. Separating seeds from chaff is a very old process. Humans have been doing this for thousands of years. And it’s fun! 

After the seeds are clean, I put them in a clean bag (mesh or paper), to continue air drying. The label moves with them. I save seeds for seed exchanges, such as Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris, and Species Iris Group of North America.  

I learned the hard way to not put fresh seeds into glassine or plastic bags––they mold. The mold doesn’t kill the seeds, it’s just in the seed coats, but it looks terrible, and when it’s really bad, all the seeds are encased in a dense whitish mold into one solid lump. Ugh!  If there's too much mold I scrub the seeds with a plastic scrubby to clean them, then rinse and re-dry the seeds. 

Drying seeds, in a row of paper bags. This takes patience, and at least ten days!

Let the seeds dry thoroughly before packaging each seed lot. I’m not naturally a patient person, so this is hard. Wait ten days, at a minimum. More is better. Only when the seeds have dried indoors, in a clean mesh bag, and I have let the days slip past, do I then put the seeds into an envelope, label it, and set it aside to send to a seed exchange. I also share seeds out to gardening friends, and this is when those seeds are mailed. 

Labels need to include what, when, where, and any details of the plant or flower that are important. List:  Pod parent, pollen parent if known, the flower color on the pod parent if it’s a species or unregistered new flower, likewise any characteristics of the pollen parent that were important to note, or bee-pollinated, if open pollination was used. If you use crossing codes to track garden crosses, write down those codes too. This helps you and others track the parentage of your seeds. 

Another task is to take all the used mesh bags, wash them in warm soapy water, rinse, dry, and then freeze them for at least two weeks. Why freeze the bags? If any invertebrate eggs are in the bags, this will kill them. Washing, drying and freezing helps ensure that the bags are clean, and ready to use again next year.  

Do you grow PCIs, and do you save seeds to give to other gardeners?