Celebration Song arrived here in 2003, it bloomed
in 2004 and died.
Was replaced in 2005, never bloomed since, hardly
grows.
Just checked, now, spring 2009, only two growth
that will be too small to ever bloom.
How come such a lousy grower ever got to
the Dykes level without anyone complaining, is beyond my understanding
!
It is placed between Funny Girl, that finally died,
after a 5 year agony, and Bold Encounter, that is thriving. Yes, there are TBs
that love it here...!
Loïc
-- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 7:20
PM
Subject: Re: [iris-photos] RE:
Northern/cold weather hardiness
<<'Celebration
Song',>>
For the records, I've lost CELEBRATION SONG
twice in zone 6, once in Alvaton and once in Bowling Green. Linda's
seedlings from CS x Immortality do well here. Betty W. KY
Zone 6 -----Original Message----- From: irischapman@aim.comTo: iris-photos@yahoogroups.comSent:
Wed, 1 Apr 2009 8:11 am Subject: [iris-photos] RE: Northern/cold weather
hardiness
It has long been argued that hardiness is divided into many
sectors based on the different climates that plants are grown in, and
genetic constitution of the individual plants. Certainly ther are plants
that do well only in very specific gardens, ie: the garden of origin.
Some thing like 'Romantic Evening' would seem to do very well in
mild climates, such as Oregon/California, and sporatically outside
this area. That it hangs on for you certainly says something, as it is
one that I would not have expected to grow in your
area. Having said that, I have to agree with you on
general hardiness. I also know that there are plants that do well in many
different climates. I exchanged some notes with Walter off list, and a
number of plants that do well for him also grow well here. 'Garden Bride',
my own very hardy cold climate plant, also does well in Texas. So, there
are plants that are hardy and vigorous in many different climates. It would
be nice if we had a way of identifying these plants. A few that I'm aware
of are 'Celebration Song', 'Garden Bride', 'Tuscana Villa',
'Vibrations' .
In addition, most of Walter's introductions do well for
me in a cold
climate, even thought they were hybridized in a hot dry
climate, much
different from my climate. Thius is not true of all hot dry
climate
introductions. I would suspect a number of my cold hardy
introductions
would also fare well in hot dry areas. Every coup
le of
years we get
extreeme drought in summer, so this goes into mix of selecting
plants
for introduction.
There are three different
sets of cold hardy genes. One of these set
also confir drought hardiness to
the plant. So plants with these sets
of genes will be more likely to be
viable both in cold climates
(Canada/Northern USA) and dry conditions, eg
Texas, Arizona. If we had
a weighted voting system for AIS awards, more of
these plants would
show up with awards. As it is the weighting is towards
plants that do
well in the "iris Paradise"
areas.
So, there are some plants that are basically
hardy, period. We need to
be able to identify these plants, so they can be
recommended to iris
novices. People's enthusiasm is turned off by a bed of
dead expensive
plants. Turned on and fueled by a bed of happy blooming
plants.
I have had a lot of responses to the trial
offer, from some excellent
gardeners who are eager. this bodes well for the
trial. Some second
thoughts include, what would happen with these same
plants in a hot dry
area , such as Arizona and
Texas?
The plants that have better responsiveness to
the environment will do
well in all sorts of environments. A number of
plant defensive actions
are triggered by a number of stressors, few plant
defensive
mechanisms are extremely specific.
Plants
that put up flower stalks very early in spring will
survive and
perform
very well in areas with hot springs , that burn off flowers,
but will be
frozen out in areas that get late frosts. So it is easy to
select against
plants that have E or VE classifications if you have
late
frosts.
There is also several types of dormancy. This
will make some plants
more hardy in some areas versus others. What I would
like to award
system to do is award plants with good flowers, that do well
in a wide
variety of growing areas.
Sandra, can you
identify what is different in your garden/culture that
would result in such
good survival, that is not seen in other in your
climate. Planting on the
south side of a house or wall is one thing
that can make a difference in a
cold climate. Many plants that don't
survive in colder area, is not because
they are killed by cold, but
because temperatures for triggering bloom and
increases are not met in
the growing season. Thus they slowly fade out. The
temperatures for
bud set and this seems to be related to the triggering of
increases,
would seem to be between 15-21C. Thus if summer minimums don't
exceed
15C for 6 nights, no bud set and limited increase. Same if
temperatures
don't go below 21C for 6 nights in a row. At least this is
what my
current experiments/research suggests. In both of these
circumstances
we would see gradual decline over several years and eventual
death of
plant. Of course, this is ve
ry much a cultivar variable, so
some will
make do with cooler or warmer trigger
temperatures.
For this last reaon, I'm encouaring trial
participants to record
min/max temperatures
on a daily basis during
growing season
A lot of various
rambling.
Chuck
Chapman
Northern/cold weather hardiness
(Chuck)
Posted by:
"SandraB"
bardraj2003@yahoo.ca
bardraj2
Tue
Mar 31, 2009 9:22 am
(PDT)
Chuck that list of
plants provided in the AIS bulletin was I believe
taken from people who
grow those irises in their cold climate gardens.
I personally don't believe
in providing people
a list of 'cold hardy' irises and
because of that I didn't provide a
list to Kate of irises that are cold
hardy. I actually didn't agree
with much of that article myself based on my
fifteen years experience
growing TB's iris in my
garden. Like I said previously I have very
little problems with TB irises
surviving the winter if they are planted
early enough. In addition, once
they survive that first winter then
they rarely have a survival problem
after
... If you are talking about
irises that continue to grow and
increase in later years then I don't
believe you are necessarily talking
about cold hardiness, but rather
irises that
aren't
vigorous and that is not necessarily specific to cold climates.
=2
0
There are certain irises that may just do
better with certain soils, a
certain climate during the growing season
(e.g. hot summers, dry vs
wet, etc.) and certain management
practises.
For instance, Romantic
Evening, that iris, is the worse
grower/increaser I have. It has bloomed
the majority of years I have
had it (I think over four winters now and I
moved it once in that
time), but it barely increases and it always blooms
on short stalks
with misshappen flowers. Now I could say that iris isn't
cold hardy,
but is it actually a good grower anywhere
?
As for blooming consistently, I have
learned from Linda in US Zone 7,
that it is the fluctations in temperature
in the spring that often kill
the bloom on the iris and I believe Donald
has also mentioned the same
thing - so are we going to
say irises that don't bloom consistently
aren't cold hardy when they do the
same sort of thing in Texas ? I
actually think for your climate Chuck,
Linda would be able to help you
more
than for
someone in a real cold climate for genetics that are less
s
Also, I would like to make a
comment about medians, especially dwarf
bearded irises. In the past five
years I have purchased a lot of SDB
irises (because they take up less
space) and I have probably lost just
as many of them in portion to the
numbers I have purchased as I do
TB's. So does th
at mean the
SDB are now getting less cold hardy (there
are some of them that are sure a
lot less vigorous) ?
I recall talking to
you about Rhonda Fleming - that iris did well for
me. I believe it would
meet your five year trial definition, but your
experience with that iris
was that it was tender - so I think other
factors
are
involved
here.
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