Rebloomers
- Subject: Rebloomers
- From: L*@aol.com
- Date: Sun, 18 Feb 96 11:22:48 MST
I'm reporting on rebloom on the front range of Colorado, Zones 4 & 5.
For the past five years, I have made a special effort to grow rebloomers
here. I segregate them where they can easily be treated to extra summer
water and food. We have had quite a bit of rebloom and learned about the
peculiarities of raising rebloomers in a climate where the killing frost
usually arrives before October 1.
I have spoken to several local iris growers who agree that Champagne Elegance
is the outstanding rebloomer for our area. It starts reblooming in July and
tends to continue uninterrupted until the frost in our garden. And it's a
pretty flower of modern form. It's interesting to me that this cultivar gets
relatively little mention as a dynamite rebloomer from growers in other parts
of the country. I guess climate idiosyncracies have a lot to do with the
tendency to rebloom.
Even better than Champagne Elegance here the last two summers has been Ben
Hager's Total Recall. A beautiful flower, nice stalks, good increase, and
absolutely continuous summer bloom. Outstanding!
The Autumn-bloomers are inconsistent at best, as have been some varieties
highly touted elsewhere. Immortality doesn't rebloom well here. Clarence is
one of those that gets some little bloomstalks aborted by the frost eash
fall. Hager's other rebloomers haven't approached the proficiency of Total
Recall.
I find SDB rebloomers unsatisfactory. Even nice modern flowers like What
Again, beautiful in spring, don't look good in summer. The leaves of SDB's
grow long after spring bloom, and rebloom stalks tend to be hidden in the
foliage. The flowers wilt quickly in the heat. The effect of a good SDB
depends partly on a profusion of bloom, and rebloomers tend to send up one
lonesome stalk at a time.
-Lowell Baumunk
