by Betty Wilkerson
A few years back, my breeding program switched from rebloomers in general to trying to produce summer rebloomers. I'd gone to bed one night and sat straight up in the bed, thinking about irises that would bloom during the summer. I jumped out of bed and started the research, worked for a couple of hours before I got tired enough to go back to sleep.
I guess I should emphasize the word "trying." This change in goals really slowed things down. One of my planned crosses, in 2011, was to use 2130-01Re, a summer rebloomer, as a pod parent with another summer rebloomer, 'Over and Over'. That cross was made but has not provided any rebloomers, yet.
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2130-01Re (Wilkerson seedling) ('Again & Again' X 'Echo Location') |
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2025-02Re (Wilkerson seedling) is a lovely white from 'Total Recall' X 1625-01Re ('Star Gate' x ('Violet Returns' x 'Breakers') |
Since I had another stalk with blooms, I crossed it by 2025-02Re. 2025-01re, a sibling to 2025-02Re, is a summer bloomer, but, as is often the case, it wasn't blooming when I needed it. Several of the 2011 seedlings bloomed in the spring of 2015. All were a reddish purple, similar to the darker area in the falls of 2130-01Re, not really attractive. Only two seedlings looked different and one of those two rebloomed.
This reblooming seedling, below, is 2611-01Re. It has perfect show bench branching, something I've been working toward for thirty years, and good form! Once branching is lost, it is hard to regain. Theoretically, most of the things I cross to this should have a very good chance of producing good branching. In theory, many of these should rebloom. So far, I've only seen the one.
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2611-01Re (Wilkerson seedling) |
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2611-01Re top view (Wilkerson seedling) |
