I'm back... bloom news, in more ways than one

I had to disappear from all but one small mailing list last year,
due to being the pod parent of new intro, Katharine Annabel, who
sprouted on 8/24 at 00:30 (nocturnal! :-)).  She joins seven-year-
old cross-mate Elizabeth AnneMarie (same parents, different pod --
isn't a sib same pod?).  The seed set period was extremely complicated
and hence the need to disappear.  :-)

I'm looking for Ginny Prins (inanda?) to whom I still owe a favour.
Does anyone have an address for her?  SIB folks?

Due to my unexpectedly difficult time last year, my gardens were
completely neglected :-( leading to much loss.  I lost a beautiful
post oak to disease that might have been treatable if caught in
time.  I lost many garden plants, and almost all of my potted
tropical collection, due to not having enough time to water them,
and to having the fellow who WAS building our greenhouse take
our (significant) money and skip out (we have a date in court in
May).  THAT was heartbreaking.

And some irises bit the dust.  We had record rains up until last
May and then complete drought until October.  Then winter rains
haven't been up to snuff, and only recently have we gotten good
rain.  This means that wildflower season is greatly reduced since
most overwinter as either rosettes or perennials and need rain.

In addition, the weird mostly very warm and dry winter with spells
of intense cold has inflicted damaged on many plants.

The irises (almost all TBs) are affected by having stunted stalks
or blooms in the fans.  The first to bloom was a short CHOCOLATE
VANILLA.  ABs SMOOTH AS SILK, DESERT CARAVAN, and ZERZURA followed,
though stalking wasn't affected (these are warm-weather iris 
anyway).  Other TBs include AURA LIGHT and JURASSIC PARK (bloomed
in fans, though AL sent up another regular bloom stalk.  Other
bloomers include JAMES P, WITCHING (I love it), an unmarked pink
self, a pale white/pale blue bicolour, two other unmarked yellow
pink peach combos, LAVISH LOVER, and REVOLUTION, which has been
blooming its head off!!!  There's also an unmarked iris which I
believe to be SHEER ECSTASY based on location and description;
and an unmarked white/yellow bicolour which bloomed short and small,
though it's in a considerable amount of shade.  Oh yes, and many
blooms on SCENTED BUBBLES, and STORYTELLER has bloomed.

Most of my iris are marked, but for some reason these aren't blooming
yet!  I grow in groups based on the company I bought from, so this
helps some in identifying most irises.  However, neglect has meant
many weeds including some rampant climbing roses moving in, and
I've had to try and reclaim some iris ground from this menace.
Some irises have made it under that cover, some haven't.  Since it's
difficult to mulch iris in my climate weeding must be constant and
with a difficult pregnancy, and now a 7-year-old AND a 7-month-old
my time to do this is so limited!  Not to mention the rest of
my garden screaming for attention!

I need to move some irises due to a loquat tree growing and
shading them out.  (I lost all fruit due to ONE freak 24 F night
:-( .)  These are my irises purchased from Ghio, Keppel, and 
Aitken, and are almost all identified, though with die-out
of the bloomed-out rhizomes and an inadequate spacing it's hard
to tell what's what.  I'm trying to revisit every iris that blooms
to try to demarcate its boundaries.

Well, that's the news from here... a bunch more bloom stalks,
which is always exciting.  I added a lot of daylilies in 1998
but so far have been not nearly as impressed with blooms as
with irises.  The daylily pictures are so pretty and if one
gets up REAL close to the daylily and it hasn't faded in our
heat I suppose you can see it.  But from a distance they can
all look the same; not so the iris.  I'm sticking with iris
for now.  :-)

Last thing -- I have some LAs in bloom -- a very small number which
I created a "boggy" situation for.  A white, a purple, and a 
pale blue, all with green markings.  Most of the LAs are marked,
but I'm not crawling into the bog to check the names just yet :-).
I haven't been as impressed with the blooms as I am with the TBs.

A lot in one mail, but I've been busy... :-)

--Amy


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