This is my first time growing iris from seeds. Last year I cross-pollinated two different colored iris. I had no names except I was told one was "Black Iris" and the other was "Purple Iris". So I had seeds where the mother was black, father was purple and then seeds from where mother was purple and father was black.

Once I gathered the seeds, I did some research. I saw that the water method or the winter-sowing method were suggested. It seemed to indicate that germination rates are sort of difficult? Or that some seeds might take much longer to germinate. I opted for the winter-sowing method.

Then we had a really, really mild winter. I didn't expect anything to grow but several seedlings popped up a few days into January. I was real excited that at least a couple were coming up. Then as the days passed, more and more popped up.

And now I have this.

I really didn't expect almost every seed to germinate so now I wonder when it's safe to transplant the seedlings so that they don't start crowding each other out. Any suggestions?

I also think it's really interesting that the seeds from BM/PD are much bigger than the PM/BD even though they pretty much popped out at the same time.