Hi Patti - this is great information from a
different growing invironment. Autumn Wine bloomed spring, summer and fall
for 3 years in same clump, without fertilizer-looked great in early
august. This year it's fourth in same setting without fertilizer or moving
it bloomed spring only and is showing some stress. Do you grow Total
Recall or Coral Chalice-older but very consistent summer rebloom here in
Mo. My best summer rebloom so far has been on BB-Love Goes On. It
does better with fertilizer, but seems to want to bloom every month of the
summer-consistent over 2 years, May, June, July, Aug, Sept, stopped later
Sept.
Again thanks for the information.
Rose Kinnard
Fredericktown, Mo
zone 6
----- Original Message -----
From:
p*@gmail.com
To: i*@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 10:24
AM
Subject: [iris-photos] HYB & REBL:
Brother Carl and Autumn Wine
I live near Spokane WA. We have a very different climate than
maritime Seattle due to being east of the Cascade Mountain range and I
live at an elevation of about 2,300 ft.
For the past four-six years I
have grown a dozen rebloomers as an experiment in our generally short
non-frost season. To provide you with perspective to our growing
season, here are some of my parameters. (If you aren't interested, fast
forward to the next paragraph) My last spring frost tends to be in mid-May
however I seldom plant geraniums before Memorial Day just to be sure of their
survival. My SDBs usually begin blooming sometime between mid-to-late
April, although this year they began to bloom in May. Some years I have a
light frost in late August. Most years it is in mid-Sept.
This year the first light frost was in mid-October. Today may be
our first geranium-killing frost.
'Autumn Wine' has been a
consistent spring and fall blooming TB iris with and average 2-8 stalks in the
fall dependent upon the timing of the first killing frost. Approximately 2-4
stalks per week begin appearing in September, so the more weeks without a
killing frost, the more stalks I enjoy. This is a great time spacing
for bringing flowers indoors to enjoy. The fall flowers can be bunchy,
but not always. It has been my most consistent
rebloomer. For the past two years I have not fertilized it after
the spring bloom so that I could eliminate fertilizer as a rebloom
trigger.
'Brother Carl' blooms both spring and fall whenever I have at
least 5 months without frost. 'Brother Carl' seems to need a slightly
stronger difference in low light to trigger the fall rebloom sequence, e.g.,
it needs a shorter daylength to trigger rebloom than that needed by 'Autumn
Wine'. So if I only have 3 months without a killing frost, BC won't get
a fall reblooming season, but if I have a later frost, I do get a fall bloom
season. This year it produced 8 stalks. This is my second most
consistent iris to rebloom in the fall without any fertilizer application
after the spring bloom season.
The other rebloomers that I grow seem to
be impacted by fertilizer (they need it to trigger the fall bloom) or the
cultivars tend to be inconsistent in the spring if they bloomed the previous
fall.
