I'm an amateur plant breeder experimenting with summer-dormant bulbs. I put the most effort into breeding the genus Moraea. Here are my favorite new hybrids from the 2022 growing season...
Raspberry-colored flowers
MM 19-132a. As you know if you’ve visited here before, I have been trying for years to breed a truly red Moraea hybrid. So far it hasn’t happened, but along the way I’m getting some other interesting colors. This rich pinky-raspberry flower is a great example. I love the both the color and the ragged edges around the eyes.
MM 19-109a. This is another nice raspberry flower, with plainer eyes.
Spots!
MM 19-26b. Wow! I’ve bred a number of white flowers that have prominent spots, but this is the first bright orange one with bright blue spots. It looks as if a fountain pen exploded.
Here are some other nice spotted flowers from this year:
Geometric markings
MM 19-26d. Believe it or not, this is a sibling of the orange flower above that looks like a fountain pen leaked on it. There are no spots on this flower, but the color pattern on it is so precise and intricate that it really stands out.
MM 18-143a. Here’s another one that has precise markings. It’s a hybrid between M. neopavonia and M. debilis. I tried to cross it with the flower above. We’ll see what happens…
Orange streaks
MM 18-193a. I have a several hybrids that have purple streaks on the tepals, but this is the first with orange streaks. It’s an interesting look, and makes me wonder what else I can do with this color pattern.
MM 18-264b. I’ve been getting a lot of interesting results from hybrids made with the Piketberg form of Moraea villosa, which I call villosa form O. In this case, the villosa’s normally bright blue eye has turned pale ice blue. It’s even more striking in person than it is in the picture. Unfortunately, this plant did not set seeds, and I fear it may be sterile.
Pale flowers with "smoke"
For years I’ve been getting occasional hybrids that have smeared colors blended along the outer edge of the central eye. To me it looks like smoke was smearing the edge, so I think of these as smokey flowers. Usually these flowers have been purple or orange, but in 2022 there were a couple with pale cream or white tepals and the smokey look.
MM 18-333c. This one is pretty spectacular; too bad the flowers are cupped.
MM 19-45b. This is another striking one.
MM 19-66a and b. These are pretty vivid in person.
Vivid colors
MM 19-15a. This is a striking flower, for a couple of reasons. First, the colors are very vivid. But second, if you’ll look closely at the inner tepals (the small petals), you’ll see that the blue color of the eye extends all the way across. This is unusual, and I hope with more breeding we might get a flower where the eye color wraps all around the center of the flower.
MM 18-136b. There isn’t anything spectacular here, but I love the richness of the colors and the speckles all over the tepals. Also note the very bright purple tips on the style crests in the center of the flower.
MM 19-70a. This is another one with very vivid colors. There’s some M. lurida in its parentage, which accounts for the black eyes and the dark maroon inner tepals. Many of my lurida flowers have dull colors, so this one was very pleasing.
MM 19-138. I’m fascinated by the very long yellow bristles in the center of the flower, contrasted against the deep blue eyes.
MM 18-78a. Another very distinctive color pattern: A bright yellow eye edged in very dark blue. I believe this is a hybrid between M. debilis and M. bellendenii.
Weird colors
MM 19-99a. Yowie, this is a weird flower. Most of it is grape colored, but it has a pale orange center and a lot of speckling. It’s not necessarily beautiful, but very unusual and interesting.
Weird eyes
MM 18-24. This is a family of M. bellendenii hybrids. Often bellendenii produces interesting two-tone eyes in hybrids. It’s fascinating what happened in these flowers.
A very special species
Moraea insolens. This isn’t a hybrid; it’s a rare species that I have been growing for about eight years, and that just bloomed for the first time here in 2022. I had tried it in pots before and it didn’t survive, but growing it in a raised bed seems to suit it better. The flowers are bright deep orange, although the photos look reddish. I carefully took the pollen from this flower and applied it to about ten Moraea species and hybrids. About half of the crosses apparently succeeded, although I won’t know for sure until the flowers bloom. So tentatively it appears that this species is compatible with the other Peacock Moraeas.
Hopefully some day two of these plants will bloom at the same time, and I’ll be able to produce more seeds of the species. I’d really like to get it established in cultivation.
About my breeding program
I've been growing summer-dormant bulbs for about 30 years, much of that time using pots. About a decade ago I started moving everything into raised beds, which are much easier to maintain. I now have 12 beds, and add about one more a year (for more on the beds, click here).
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, most of them are brightly colored, and many of the prettiest species can be hybridized to make unique new 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 cross them.
I am not a botanist and I'm making up my hybridization program as I go 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 ones 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 autumn to winter of each year California time.
Thank you
Many people helped me build my bulb collection, including Moraea king 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.
