I have spent a lifetime on iris hybridizing in small backyard patches in two states. I could write volumns. I am proud of the irises of mine that have won AMs and HMs and the twenty odd show medals I have won plus about ten QOSs. My iris history goes back to my teen-age years, but I didn't discover the AIS until 1967 when I accidentally stumbled in on an iris show at a mall in Fort Worth, TX.

Check with Iris Talk, where there is a daily discussion on hybridization.

My pet peeve which is a no-no in hybridizing is crossing plicatas with selfs. It is extremely rare to get something nice in the first generation. You will have to cross back to plics or selfs and carry the line on for generations.

Crossing Thornbird with a white will get you nowhere, and I marvel that people are introducing irises from such a cross even in 2006. All I got were fantastically branched flowers the colors of pus. Some people may like that thing, though. It's a crazy world. I believe the future is in blends, bicolors, plics, contrasting beards, and other unusual markings on the falls. It is doubtful I would cross a yellow with a yellor or a blue or a blue unless both rebloomed. There are so many good ones all ready. This is about as abbreviated as I can write this.

The best thing after developing a few 'super seedlings' has been meeting some of the most wonderful people in the world, some who have been friends for decades.

Walter Moores

PCI's - I have literally thousands of seeds this year, and will only plant the very best. I am looking for pretty, full petalled, frilly blooms, but also strong healthy plants with lots of flowers open at once. One I showed in a pot last year, with the top 2 buds both open on 4 stems, royal purple, frilly blooms, sold in the auction for $45 Aus. They went crazy! I am also looking for branching, but more stems is just as good. I am also starting to do a bit of "retro" work, looking for closer to species types with delicate blooms, on healthy plants. And just for fun - I had somve very big, rounded petalled, flatties, looking like JI's. I will follow up on those. And some with very frilled style arms, but fertility becomes a problem with these.
SDB's - because I love them, but I never get enough seed because of our cold wet early Springs. IB's - love them too but difficult to get seed. I have actually had more success crossing IB's to SDB's or to TB's, oddly enough.
TB's - just because they are there, and I go a bit hybridising mad by the end of the season - LOL. I was most disappointed with my TB seedlings this year and chucked most of them, but the morning of the late show I found the most gorgeous bloom on my one and only seedling from COUNT THE KISSES X MAN ABOUT TOWN. It took out second best floret in show, would have got first but one of the falls was torn. I was advised to put it in the competition garden but don't have enough rhizomes yet, so next year. It seems to increase well and had 4 good blooms on a seedling. A lovely creamy coloured standard, and pink falls. Close to a pink amoena. I am hoping my TLC doesn't kill it!
MTB's - there are so few of these in Aus, and I am convinced that it is because they don't do well here. My best are Welch's reward and Bumblebee Delight. My seedlings so far are rubbish. They are fun to put in the median section of the late show when no other medians are in bloom!
What am I looking for? Firstly excellent form, healthy plants, showy looking stalks. Bloom numbers - not too few, but sometimes too many can detract from the look of the stalk. I guess how they look in the garden is most important to me.
Secondly something a bit different in colour and pattern. I don't feel it is worth registering my "Jurassic Park" look alike - LOL
Cheers, Jan in Aus, enjoying your bloom season and looking forward to Winter so I can dream of Spring!

Mr. Moores, is there a website of your iris, and where are they available for purchase? What an honor to have you on this forum to help us with our questions. Polly

Thanks for your kind words. Like Keith Keppel and Joe Ghio, I am trying to slow down.

I do not have a website.

Superstition and Mid-America have a number of my introductions for sale.

Walter Moores

Some of Mr. Moores introductions are also available at Nicholl's Gardens - www.nichollsgardens.com - There are wonderful pictures. Some of Walter's - "America's Team", "Gold Reprise", "Grape Reprise", "Pink Reprise", "Prince of Earl"

Marvine, thank you. I have been reading Mr. Moores posts here for a while, and I thought it would be nice to have some of his iris in my garden. So nice to have a little story behind the plants. If Mr. Moores would like to suggest, or give us a list of some of his that are currently available in commerce, it would be appreciated? I have ordered the Superstition catalog to see what they have. Polly

Thanks for your interest.

The most recent introductions of mine (2005) should be in Superstition and Mid-America catalogs. They are SUNSHINE LADY and PANSY PARADE. I sent them last summer, but sometimes they are not listed the first year because they didn't increase or weather conditions were bad. With all of the rainfall, they have had in the Pacific Northwest, one wonders how anything can survive at all with eleven inches of rainfall alone in January. Probably Superstition is your best bet.

A scattering of other catalogs lists a few of my things. I saw some on Blue J when their catalog came up online. River View has had some.

Walter Moores

Walter, We had 10.5 inches in January on this hill in NE Mississippi. We have had almost 2 inches in February. There is so little nitrogen in the soil here that I still do not have many iris to rot.

Hill is the operative word!

I got a list of my introductions from Superstition as to what they are going to list in their catalog this year.

Chocolate Chess
Confederate Muster
Cranberry Cordial
Lavender Reflection
Lemon Chess
Lemonade Springs
Libra Star
Pansy Parade
Purgatory
Shore Patrol
Sunshine Lady

Walter Moores

Thank you, Mr. Moores!

I love Mr. Moore's irises, but they are hit and miss here in the PNW. Grape reprise and Pink Reprise hated our climate and I finally sent the poor things to live elsewhere in the hopes they would be happier. Dime Spot and Spiked Punch love it and do wonderfully for me.

I intend to start a breeding program now that I have the space for it. I'll be working with siberiens, PCIs and i. foetidissima (which I believe is sadly neglected and underrated as a species, and could be so much better with some work). I currently have 40 sib seedlings I expect to see bloom this spring.

In the future I plan to work with bearded iris too, but they will not be commercially viable as my tastes run to the old fashioned in form. That will be purely for my own enjoyment, though I have some ideas for a line of 'flatties' that may be of interest to a wider audience eventually.

Mike

How do you register your hybrid iris?
Stuart

Check in the AIS Bulletin. Usually, there is a page on registration in each issue. It costs $10 for each registration and you must research the name to see if it has been used before or a variation thereof and now a sound alike. (e.g. 'Who's Your Daddy vs. 'Hoosier Daddy'. The simplest thing is to pay $10 and join the Iris Register and view all of the info through 2005. All names are listed through 2006. Yearly supplements to a ten year Check List are issued in hard copy. (No info is given online for the 1939 and 1949 Checklists because of a complicated color coding system, few descriptions, and lack of introduction information on many). The info is kept a year behind online so the print copies will sell.

If you have a good one to register, I think you should join AIS for the particulars.

Walter Moores

so if you get a realy good hybred could you sell it to an iris farm like tempo two?

I see you are in Australia Stuart. Your registered seedlings are worth nothing unless you market them. Barry Blyth from Tempo Two is getting out of the nursery this year, and just continuing with his breeding program. He occasionally used to take new introductions of other peoples, but I imagine they would have to have been trialled in a competition garden first to prove their worth, then grown on to a large enough number for selling. That is a lot of hard work for someone.
If you want to get into an iris breeding program yourself it is best to work out a goal and stock up on good quality parent stock (that in itself can be costly - I have spent over $2000 AUD this year) then do some crosses and wait the 2 or 3 years to see what you get. If you get some nice seedlings, trial them in one of the competition beds and show some stalks to get an idea if you have something worth selling, then do the marketing. Most people look at marketing on line these days, or through a mail out list advertised in a garden magazine. Puting irises in the trial gardens, and developing a consistant line of irises will help to give you credibility as a breeder.
Irises are easy to increase and readily available and are therefore not of interest to the PBR people that breed plants for the supermarket trade. There is no one out there who will come to you and pay big money for a new iris you have developed unless you come up with something absolutely amazing, for instance a beautiful cross between a japanese iris and a pacific coast iris.
Cheers, Jan in Australia

Jan,

I want to email you, but there isn't an email link on your "My Page".

Could you please email me.

Mark