Hello and Welcome

Hello and welcome to my new blog.  This blog is primary  going to be about my adventure in learning how to hybridize iris flowers.  expect a lot of pictures of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I also hope to explain my decisions as to why have crossed what I have crossed and decide to keep in the end.  Some times I cross flowers because they are pretty and/or blooming at the same time.  Other times I have more a of a reason behind it.  

I started hybridizing iris in 2012 and have planted a lot of seedlings since then.  Oddly enough I tend to have a bumper crop of seedlings every other year with the big years so far being 2013 and 2015.  Not sure why this is.  This means that A lot of my 2013 seedlings will be blooming for the very first time this year and I am quite excited about this.  Almost all of my hybridizing is done with tall bearded iris.  I do have a couple of intermediate and standard dwarf iris seedlings but they are few.  

A little bit about my gardens...  I have about 300 varieties of iris planted around my house and use mainly these iris for hybridizing.  Occasionally I will get bloom stalks from friends in the area to use the pollen from.  I live in Minnesota so the winters are cold here.  This means that I start my iris seeds indoors, sprout them in my fridge, and usually plant them when they sprout in November or December.  Once planted they sit in a sunny window until about Mother's Day when I plant them outdoors.  I live on a city lot.  This means there is not much room.  Lucky for me I have friends who live out in the country and have room for me to plant at their place.  About half of my seedlings are at my house and the other half are about 45 minutes away.  

A little bit about myself... I am not a professional gardner and this is my hobby.  I am the Vice President of the Iris Society of Minnesota and a Judge for the American Iris Society.  I have started going to the annual American Iris Society National Convention with last year being my first year attending.  I do not have an educational background in biology or anything to do with plants so I am learning/making this up this as I go.  This blog is me documenting my learning, success, and failures.  Hopefully eventually I will get to introduce some great iris to the world.  

Below are pictures of my seedlings.  The more established seedling bed are my 2015, 2013, and 2014 seedlings.  The new 2015 seedlings were planted last weekend at a friends house.  I should start having seedlings bloom this week.  Exciting times!