First Bloom Of The Season

Here is the first Louisiana iris bloom of the very late season. It’s a relatively short (24″) seedling (No. 03-07) with a smallish, open flower. There’s no huge splash in the garden since it is not a huge flower, but the color pattern is interesting. The parentage is complicated: (Mudbug x ((Harland K. Riley x Gold Reserve) x Flame On)) x Lemon Zest.

I let this one get scattered around to several locations in the reorganization following Katrina. I’ve finally consolidated it in one place and will look at it another year. The flower is not the big fancy ruffled thing in vogue now but I like the color. We’ll see. I am on the fence about this one at present. The somewhat open flower does not bother me at all. As Caroline Dormon once said, they don’t all need to be as big as a hat. Of course, in Dormon’s day, I think hats were much bigger.

Louisiana iris seedling 03-07

Looking at the parentage reminds me that I wish I still had Chowning’s ‘Gold Reserve’. I gather that it is hard to come by. Dick Sloan has been looking for it, as I recall. I thought is was a fine iris and it still needs to be in circulation. I used to like Rowlan’s ‘Flame On’ pretty well, too. It has a gold signal much wider than the dark red styles, which is unusual. I think I have some of that in a pot somewhere, suffering from neglect, no doubt.