If you haven't been here before, welcome! I'm an amateur breeder experimenting with various summer-dormant bulbs. I spend the most time on the genus Moraea. Here are my favorite new hybrids from winter 2021...
MM 18-334b (MM 14-146a X MM 13-89a). Rich pink-magenta tepals, electric blue eyes, and stippled black eyelashes around the eyes. This is one of my favorite Moraea hybrids of all time.
MM 18-329b (MM 13-84d X villosa O). A delightful surprise. I crossed a purpley-orange hybrid of M. loubseri with the beautiful magenta form of Moraea villosa found nead Piketberg South Africa (for reference, I call it villosa form O). The result has the magenta tepals and blue eyes of villosa O, but with orange on the backs of the tepals, a bright orange center, and pointed tepals from M. loubseri.
MM 18-135a (MM 13-137 X MM 13-89a). This cross brought together a very nice villosa hybrid with MM 13-137 (tripetala X calcicola), a cross that has a long history of producing veins in its offspring.
MM 18-136a (MM 13-137c X MM 13-77b). Another MM 13-137 offspring.
Spots! In addition to veins, I've been getting very interesting spot patterns on some hybrids. Here's this year's most densely-spotted new hybrid:
MM 18-91b (MM 13-138 X MM 14-86a). This cross involves M. bellendenii and a complex hybrid that had just a few spots on it. The bellendenii contribution completely removed the flower's eye spot (which it often does), but I didn't expect to get so many spots.
Most of my spotted flowers before now have been white, so it was nice to get an orangey one.
Multi-colored eyes. Although M. bellendenii doesn't have eye spots, it produces strange effects when crossed with flowers that do. Sometimes, as in the hybrid above, the eye vanishes. More often the eye's shape is radically changed, or it produces multi-colored eyes. The multi-colored ones are often striking. Here are my favorites from the new crop:
MM 18-15 (MM 15-09a X MM 13-94c). I don't know what to call this color. Burnt pumpkin? Whatever, it really stood out.
MM 18-38 (MM 13-207a X MM 15-80b). There's something hypnotic about the ragged blue eye and the very precise stippling on the inner tepals (the smaller petals).
MM 18-38 (MM 13-207a X MM 15-80b). Sibling of the flower above. I'm starting to get a few of these crosses in which the eye is very pale.
MM 18-235a (MM 13-207a X villosa O). Speaking of pale eyes...
MM 18-312a (MM 14-86a X 13-89a). Nice raspberry color and great eyelashes, but I wish the eye was brighter.
Creeping redness. One of my biggest breeding goals is to get a truly red flower, inspired by the vivid red M. tulbaghensis that are found in a single spot at the Bartholomeus Klip farm near Hermon, South Africa (and, unfortunately, unavailable in cultivation). Every year or two I get some flowers that look a bit more reddish, although in person they're still more brick-colored or mauve than true red. The best ones this year are:
MM 18-234a (MM 13-139a X MM 13-77b).
MM 18-316 (neopavonia 'Summerfield' X villosa O)
Crosses with M. debilis. Several years ago I got my first blooms from M. debilis, which has a purple flower so small that you almost need a magnifying glass to fertilize it. I got out my needle-point tweezers and attempted some crosses, several of which bloomed for the first time this year and are clearly hybrids. The flowers are all very small, but they have some interesting color patterns.
MM 18-74 (debilis X aristata). The eye has the aristata color scheme, which doesn't always show up in hybrids. I like the dagger markings on the tepals.
MM 18-76 (debilis X loubseri). I like all the spots on this one. It might make for some good follow-on hybrids.
About my breeding program. I've been growing summer-dormant bulbs for about 30 years, much of that time using pots. About ten years ago I started moving everything into raised beds, which are much easier to maintain. I now have ten beds, and am working on more (for more on the beds, click here).
The pandemic has been bad for almost everything, but it's been good for my breeding program. I worked from home all year, so I was able to make crosses every evening in spring. I ended up with about 400 crosses this year, an all-time record. I've been struggling to build enough bed space to plant all of them, which is why I'm late with this update.
Over the years I've tried growing hundreds of bulb species from California, South Africa, Chile, etc. Many of them are unusual and beautiful, and I encourage you to try them. I've found that the Moraeas are especially rewarding -- they're relatively easy to grow in my climate in San Jose, CA, many of them are very beautiful, and a lot of the species can be hybridized to make even more flowers.
Some people look down on hybridizing – they feel it distracts from preserving species. I don't agree. I do my best to preserve and share all the Moraea species I can get, but there are only so many species you can obtain. If I want to see new flowers every year, I need to breed them.
I am not a botanist and I've made up my hybridization program as I went along. I welcome suggestions and any other advice, especially if you have any botanical expertise.
My Moraea wish list. There are about twenty more Moraea species that should be compatible with the species I’ve been breeding, but they are not available in commerce. I hear they’re privately grown, though. If you know of sources for seed or pollen of any of them, I am very happy to trade or pay. To be clear, I am not soliciting collection from the wild or anything else improper. I’d just like to be in touch with other growers who are willing to share. You can see my wish list here.
Free seeds. I am glad to share seeds of Moraea hybrids and species with anyone who’s interested. There’s no charge. Much of my collection was given to me by others, so I am trying to return that generosity. If you’re interested, send me a note at the email address here. Include your name, mailing address, how many seeds you'd like, and list the crosses that appeal to you the most. I don't distribute bulbs, but I'll try to send you seeds that are likely to resemble the flowers you like. I send seeds in late October of each year, so if you want some in 2021, please contact me soon.
Thank you. Many people helped me build my bulb collection, including Bob Werra, Paul F. X. Von Stein, Garry Knipe, Jim Duggan, Gordon Summerfield, Cameron and Rhoda McMaster, Rod and Rachel Saunders, Mary Sue Ittner, the members of the Pacific Bulb Society, International Bulb Society, and the Indigenous Bulb Growers of South Africa. Plus many more people I've forgotten to list. Thank you all.
What a pleasure to look at the extraordinary colours and patterns - well done!
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