Mitchell Medal 2018

The American Iris Society

Announces

The Sydney B. Mitchell Medal 2018

‘PACIFIC TAPESTRY’

'Pacific Tapestry'--image by Terry Aitken

'Pacific Tapestry' (J. Terry Aitken, R. 2010). Standards purple veined darker; style arms purple; falls yellow underlay, network of brown veins interspersed with brown speckling that radiates to rim; velvety. 'Bar Code' X unknown. Salmon Creek 2010. Award of Merit 2015.

This medal is restricted to Pacific Coast Native (PCN) irises. It is named in honor of Sydney B. Mitchell (1878-1951). Prof. Sydney Mitchell was an educator. He became Acting Librarian at the University of California during WW I, and later founded and became first director of the Graduate School of Librarianship at that university. He was also one of the organizers of the American Iris Society. Tom Craig wrote this of him: "Sydney looked upon plant breeding as a long term international effort in which individuals from all over the world should co-operate and add generation after generation to a real human achievement. He made me feel a real part of this and more particularly a part of a special work started by William Mohr and carried on by himself. Sydney generously gave flowers and plants of seedling for further encouragement with this work."

Mitchell was also interested in the native irises of the West Coast, and promoted them at every opportunity. He took great pride in the plantings of PCNs in his own garden. He had a large collection of various forms of I. innominata and I. douglasiana.

The World of Irises blog will be posting once a day all of the medal winners. The entire list of winners can be found at http://irises.org/About_Irises/Awards_Surveys/AIS_Awards.html, the AIS Encyclopedia and later in the AIS Bulletin, IRISES. Pictures can be found at http://wiki.irises.org/Main/InfoAwards2018.

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!  

Pacifica Irises in Snow

By Kathleen Sayce

Written February 17, 2014

I started growing Pacifica Iris more than fifteen years ago, when the West Coast was in a warmer, drier weather cycle, so it took several years for my plants to experience even a little snow. In the past few years, a few snow days each winter have been more common than not, so I can now report knowledgeably on what happens to Pacificas in the snow.

Iris chrysantha under light snowfall

First, some species in my garden, including Iris hartwegii ssp. australis, I thompsonii and I. tenax, normally go completely dormant. In warmer snow-free years, they may or may not brown down until February. It's not uncommon for all of these species to keep green leaves for most of the winter, and then in early March, suddenly the old battered but still greenish leaves vanish, and a few weeks later the small, stubby new leaves appear.

Now add snow to the mix, even just a few days, and wham, the leaves brown off, and the plants vanish from the surface.

The second group, of species, includes Iris innominata, I. chrysophylla and I. douglasiana, and also hybrids, hangs on and keeps some green leaves all winter long, though those leaves can look pretty battered, and many are browning off, by late February. Hybrid Pacificas are a mix of many species, largely from around the Bay Area of the central California coast and nearby mountains. These tend to have more I. douglasiana genes, which is a sturdy evergreen species with large leaves.

Iris 'Cape Ferrelo' under light snowfall.

So the hybrids stay evergreen, come snow, hail, ice storms or torrential rains.

These traits, evergreen leaves or not, and a tendency to go fully dormant in snow or not, have helped me sort out the likely genetics of Pacificas that may come to a gardener without a label, or with an erroneous one. I. douglasiana and I. innomnata have durable evergreen leaves; I. douglasiana leaves tend to be thicker, longer, and wider, while I. innominata leaves tend to be a very dark green, narrower, and shorter.

Seedling Pacifica Iris emerging from snow in the garden.

My I. hartwegii ssp. australis plants were grown from seeds collected by a SPCNI member, Richard Richards, who lives in southern California. The first winter they experienced snow, I sent Richard a photo to show the plants well buried in white stuff. He wrote back that there was a drought that winter in the San Bernardino Mtns, and these plants might be the happiest individuals of that species anywhere on the West Coast that year. This was the first year that I noticed just how differently Pacificas go dormant under snow.

Iris hartwegii ssp. australis emerging from snow cover. 

The last photo in this post is a Pacifica iris that was labeled I. innominata 'Burnt Sugar' when I bought it many years ago. The leaves are too wide and long to be solely I. innominata, which is the mostly likely species based on flower color. There's not a hint of dormancy when ice storms and snow arrive. This one has some I. douglasiana genes too. By the fairly narrow falls and standards, it is not too far from a yellow-flowered species selection, and is not a modern hybrid. ['Burnt Sugar' is not a registered name] Thanks to an industrious Steller Jay, the original tag, including source, is long gone.

Iris 'Burnt Sugar', an unregistered selection, in full flower. 

Knowing now how Pacifica species behave in snow, it's clear that 'Burnt Sugar' has both I. douglasiana and I. innominata genes, hence the lovely yellow color with red veining on a sturdy plant with dark green leaves, and no sign of dying back under snow. 

To learn more about these irises and others, visit SIGNA, the Species Iris Group of North America's website.