Saving Seeds and Making Hybrids. 7.18.15

Many flowers are setting seeds now.  For ornamentals, there is a choice between, letting them do their own thing, or deadheading to stimulate bloom and allow photosynthetic energy to go to root and stem storage, or let the seeds ripen and save the seeds.

For some plants, it takes intentional pollination.

My plan is to save the following seeds.

Ornamental Alliums - already discussed.  Cutting off dried seed-heads and shaking/rubbing the seeds into a bowl, then save in envelope.

Chives - same as Ornamental Alliums.

Dried El Dorado Peach Seeds.  7.21.15

Peaches - saving seeds from genetic dwarf tree to play with and experiment.  Those are dry in an envelope.  I need to crack them open and stratify some, plant others for nature to do its own stratification.

Peaches - from locally grown RedHaven, also dry in a bowl.  I want to grow one for a peach tree, maybe.  The others are for rootstock.

Apricots - see if I can sprout a couple to use as scion on a plum tree.

 Peacotum - ditto as for apricots.

Marigolds - save yellow and rust red varieties.  They are open pollinated so doubtless have mixed.  I'm not crazy about the more common orange ones, so I won't save those.   If orange dominates yellow or brick red, I could wind up with mostly orange again.

Tigridia Early Seed Pod.  7.21.15

Seed Pods Among Flower Buds on Daylily "Fooled Me"  7.21.15

Tigridia - I've been pollinating each, either self or with other color blooming at the same time.  no rhyme or reason.  I like the yellow/red mix the best.  I should cut off the seed pods for the others, why grow the ones I'm not crazy about.

Chicago Apache Early Seed Pod.  7.21.15

Dayilies.  Cross pollinating Chicago Apache (triploid) with Fooled Me (triploid).  Each gets the pollen from the other.  I am not emasculating them, so there could well be some self pollinating going on.

Also pollinated mystery variety "Vigoro" which has a triploid look, with pollen from Chicago Apache and Fooled me.

Also some others among the diploids.  Pardon Me with Stella De Oro, and with Luxury Lace.  Luxury Lace with Pardon Me.  Selfed the pale yellows.    I don't know if the one sold as Daring Deception is a mutant of that variety, or if in tissue culture it lost its polyploidy and became diploid, or was mislabeled, or is a seedling of Daring Deception that was mistaken as the real thing.  Still, it's the only lavender daylily in the bunch, so I used pollen from both diploids and triploids to see what sets.

No real strategy.  Only one currently with a contrasting eye color, which would be nice to pass on to progeny.

That's a lot of seeds.  It's all experimentation, doesn't matter if they don't grow, or if there is nothing worth while.  I bet some will grow, and there will be something worthwhile.

Irises.

The 3rd raised bed is completed. Soil is from a pile behind the house. Again, mixing with compost as I filled. Maybe about 20% compost by volume. This time it's for flowers. Saving space for the spring shipment of irises. Plus added a row of Anemone rhizomes at the front. No idea if they will grow. They were like little rocks. Dry and hard.  Could have soaked them first. In this climate, with rain expected for the next 4 months, that seems excessive.  So I did not soak them.  I"m growing the Irises in a grid.  I'm not interested here in them as landscaping.  I like the flowers for themselves. The bed is just under 4 X 8, and the irises are about 7 across and 3 deep.  So a little more than a square foot each.  The smaller growing ones are toward the front.

The three iris rhizomes here with, white leaves are from dried-out shipments / store bought.  No confidence they will grow planting so late.  The far right, back one is Red Zinger, a medium size iris I wanted to try.   The lower right one is a rescue, I saved from bacterial rot this summer.  Diety.  Between them, I planted 2 rows of iris seeds from this summer's hybridization effort.  By planting them in the beds, there is minimal maintenance.

I planted some of the containerized irises. I've been coddling them for months. Four have died from bacterial rot. None of the in-ground irises did. Maybe that means, container method is not so good? The potting soil is not so good?  Mostly I want this bed for heritage irises, but some are modern.  I did not water them in.  I planted a little shallower than they were in containers. They had excellent root growth.  I tried not to disturb the roots.  No use spreading the root out.  Iris roots are deciduous, die off and are replaced as new rhizomes grow.

Lilies

I don't know the name for this one. It's quite beautiful. It's now mid season for lilies. The orientals are just beginning. Tiger type lilies are finishing. I pollinated Citronella with pollen from Orange Turks Cap lily (Lilium henryi). The Asiatic lily hyrids are long gone, and the Trumpet lilies are almost gone as well.

Creating Hybrid Iris

While the irises were blooming, I diligently transferred pollen among varieties. I may have pollinated 30 flowers - lost count. Of those, only 3 flowers "took".  That's all I need - no room for zillions of iris seedlings.

This was Spiced Custard pollinated by Immortality.   I did not bag the flowers, so it's possible there is cross pollinaton with a different variety.  The pods remind me a bit of poppy seed pods.  

This was an un-named purple/blue iris rescue, pollinated by Liaison.  In general, I pollinated blues with blues, and yellows or oranges with yellows or oranges, and anything with white.