lauriemorningglory said:
Agree on 06d. Nice color combo and ruffles.

10a has a neat little horizontal line of purple on the style. And great pink color. Just need one like this with a few more ruffles!

I like 13a, too.

Seconded!

I started working with tetraploid Miniature Tall Bearded Irises several years ago. They are a challenging group so the first step just to build up a group of seedlings that could form the basis of a breeding program. To that end, I've grown a bunch of MTB seedlings and tossed all but three for one reason or another. I hope these three (along with a bunch more that will bloom over the next couple of years) are the start of something worthwhile, but suspect it's going to be a long road getting to something that could be registered.

18M-04g. Not what I expected from the cross, but the flowers are the right size, the stalks are very well branched and proportioned, and I like the ruffles.


18M-06k. Flowers are slightly on the big side and it's frankly kind of ugly. However, it has good stalks, the fall veining is interesting, and I've always enjoyed irises that blended pink, orange, and yellow. Tall Bearded Iris (Iris 'Caneel Sunset') is a good example. 18M-06k is NOT a good example of that blend, but the colors are there. Crossed it to Queen Mum and Bright Victory among others. Hope to clean up the colors and bring the flower size down at bit as well.


19M-03b. Somewhat unusual color, nice veining in the falls. Crossed it to all sorts of stuff last year just to see what it might produce.

difficult class. For those who don't know; MTB flowers must be no larger than 3" X 3". Difficult with tets.

19M-03b is a beautiful color combo!

Completely agree with Daisy on the last one but I also think the middle one is very beautiful!!!

Kent,

MTB are quite the challenge. I made my first TET. Cross in 2013. I'm starting to see improvement finely. It's a long road, but I'm slowly getting there. I started out the hard way by crossing into talls. So I have all types of size issues. I got to meet Paul Black back in 19, and got to ask questions about his MTB program. Learned some good stuff and had to laugh because not knowing we both had the the same ideas. He is far ahead of me, but I'm learning as I go. Paul has just a tad more experience than I do. I've been using and buying a lot of Paul's stuff to add in my line. FYI flirtin skirts and silver ice have shown promise with seedlings. I've got ton of MTB seedlings in my field. Hopefully I will have a good bloom season this year.

Glad to hear of folks working on MTBs.

Cory,

I also use a lot of Paul Black's plants, simply because it's hard to find other material and Paul's plants are always so interesting. Every year, when the iris companies start showing their new introductions, I look forward to seeing Paul's medians more than anything else.

I've been outcrossing tet MTBs to BBs and certain TBs to try to bring in more colors and patterns. Most of the resultant seedlings don't really fit well in any class, but maybe represent steps along the way. Paul's line of "late flowering SDBs" might be helpful in terms of bringing the flower size back down to where MTBs are supposed to be. I don't know for certain, but kind of suspect some of them are 48 chromosome tetraploids. They seem to be capable of producing fertile offspring when crossed to TBs, BBs, and tet. MTBs anyway.

As you said, it's a long (but interesting) road. The last few bloom seasons haven't helped speed things along. 2018 was disastrous, we had two weeks of temps in the 90s right as the TB/MTB bloom started which pretty well ruined that year. 2019 was okay, but I didn't get very good germination on the MTB seeds for some reason. 2020 was even worse than 2018, hot in May combined with a hard freeze in late April. Last year was pretty good. Got a lot of seeds, we'll see in the next few weeks whether they germinate or not.

Speaking of germination, I'm glad to hear you've been successful with Flirtn' Skirts. I make crosses with it often and get plenty of seeds. Relatively little germination, though. I'm hoping it's just bad luck or bad decisions on my part, not a problem with Flirtn' Skirts itself.

Some TBs I've sent to Phil that may get introduced in the future.

13T-18c. 'Chocolates and Silk' is the pollen parent. I've done a number of crosses with 'Chocolates and Silk' over the years, on the rare occasions when it blooms, even though it has some issues as a parent. It's a pretty iris with interesting beards that produces beautiful seedlings. Unfortunately, most of them end up being culled because they have bad branching and/or grow or bloom poorly. This was one of the exceptions.


15T-05c. One of my all time favorites.


16T-06a. Closely resembles its pod parent, 'Enter the Dragon', maybe a little darker. Normally, that would be a reason to toss it, but I've never been able to keep 'Enter the Dragon' alive for more than a couple of years at a time so a good growing version may be worthwhile. If not, I think it will be a good breeder for me.


16T-11j


16T-78a

Not trying to hijack your post but here a few new MTB to bloom last year

Cory, thanks for posting images of your MTB seedlings! Nice ruffling and colors. The 5th one has great form and full beards, too!

Are you using 'Casual Attire', Cory? Some of the seedlings look like what I'd expect to see from it. Of course, 'Silver Ice' was it's pod parent, so maybe that's where the resemblance comes from?

I haven't used it. I believe 3 & 4 are silver ice as pod. My notes on pictures are poor this year. I've used to the contrary quite a bit.

Had queen mum but she was a no bloom last year. I ordered 3 or 4 new ones last year of Paul's. Looking forward to using them this year!. I started this whole program with my fantasy and say red. So I've had a lot of work to do on form. That's where crossing with talls came in and Paul's plants.

I found the comment interesting that Paul. Black was working on late blooming SDBs. I have had a few the last few seasons that bloomed later with mid TBs. I just thought it was a fluke but then it occurred 2 years in a row. And I can't remember which 2 they were but I know they were mid-America's and was pleasantly surprised they did just fine in our heat!!! I know one of them is one of his Pinks.

Paul often gives detailed descriptions of his late flowering SDB line in the Mid-America catalog. Links to a few of them are below. If you look into the parentages of those plants, they are quite fascinating. There are usually at least some traditional SDBs, which are probably 40 chromosome amphidiploids. But, there are also TBs, tet. MTBs, and fertile IBs, all of which are presumably 48 chromosome tetraploids.

How Paul got fertile plants out of those crosses is hard to figure (I've been assured by "experts" on facebook that it's impossible). Truly remarkable achievement on Paul's part..

https://www.mid-americagarden....
https://www.mid-americagarden....
https://www.mid-americagarden....
https://www.mid-americagarden....
https://www.mid-americagarden....

You'll see 'Date with Destiny' in the background of many of these plants. I used to have it, but unfortunately lost it when we moved a few years ago. Anyone know a source for it?

Species X Iris (Iris 'Date with Destiny') is really an amazing iris. You can cross it to SDBs and get fertile offspring. You can also cross it to TBs and tet MTBs and get fertile offspring. That shouldn't work, but it does. I lost several irises when we moved. For the most part, that didn't bother me very much, but losing Date with Destiny was a real kick in the rear. It was a fun iris to play with. I do have several of its descendants and make crosses with them, but still would give up quite a lot to get it back.

Not available from Mid-America anymore?

Nope. I guess it's possible they still have it around, but it hasn't been listed in their catalog for several years.

Some other TB seedlings that Phil has:

16T-44c


16T-52c


17T-04a


17T-71a. A difficult iris to photograph or even describe. It's not peach, not pink, somewhere in between. Very pretty IRL though


17T-49f. A purple bitone, perhaps the most common type of bearded iris, but an unusual shade. Dusky purple I would call it.

really like 1D-52C I think that's the number.