Questions & Answers
Hello! I am a beginner iris enthusiast in Virginia 7b, hoping to make a fragrant, re-blooming space ager with an attractive color combination. I share your love for beautiful fragrant irises, as my childhood home in NH had a walkway lined on both sides with a non-variegated Iris Pallida that smelled so amazing each spring, that it made me fall in love with irises as a young boy.
My question is: In your experiences with hybridization, have you discovered if the scent or strength of scent from an iris is more pod-parent related or more pollen parent related, or a mixture of both, or perhaps carried in a dormant fashion to reappear in future hybrid cultivars? Also, do you know if a strong scent or sweet scent is dominant, genetically speaking, as opposed to weak scent or musky/spicy?