... growing and hybridizing all kinds of plants in zone 6b Maryland since the 1980's.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Comparison of iris foliage for mid-December

Loïc's observation of the dead foliage in his comment for yesterday's post, got me thinking... I should get pictures of different irises foliage so that the currently brown foliage on 'Cricket Song' won't seem so out of the ordinary. In all honesty, it probably wouldn't still be blooming if it weren't fairly close to the foundation. It's flowerstalks would have most likely been frozen completely like the ones in the picture of 'Harvest of Memories' below. But in spite of the bed of straw appearance, I'm still enjoying seeing blooms in mid-December here. Here's 'Cricket Song' today...
 
 For comparison here's 'Yellow Flirt' - 2 yards (meters) away...
 
 Here's 'Clown Pants'...

And Iris purpureobractea (a diploid bearded species)...
 
 Here's 'Paltec' (bearded crested hybrid)...
 
 and Iris tectorum alba...

Here are the two interploid seedlings (from tetraploid TB x diploid MTB)...

Here's 'Tennessee Gentleman' (TB)...

and 'Harvest of Memories' (see frozen stalks)...
 
 Iris pallida 'Princess Beatrice'...

One that has tended to keep more foliage throughout the winter is a hybrid seedling from Iris pallida 'Kupari' X 'Rosemary's Dream'...

And a bunch of relatively evergreen seedlings from Iris purpureobractea crossed with a complex seedling with 'Kupari' in it. It seems that 'Kupari' passes on a tendency to resist dormancy - for good or bad???

So anyway, you can see that 'Cricket Song' isn't out of the ordinary in having dormant brown foliage at this time of year here. It's only out of the ordinary in having stalks still trying to continue blooming. And thanks Loïc, for giving me reason to go out and photograph all this December foliage. I wouldn't have thought to do it otherwise!

2 comments:

  1. can you help me to get to contact the person who makes the wheat research?thanks

    jose l. morales

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  2. Hi Jose,
    You can ask questions here or contact me offline using the e-mail link on the main page (near top right of the page). I don't get many people wanting to talk about wheat, so I look forward to hearing from you.
    Best wishes, Tom

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