CULT: SPU: OT-PLANTS Length of bloom season

To those doubters who accuse irises of having such a "short" bloom season:
Today marks two full months of bloom in our yard.  The last blossom on SPU
Copper Trident is folding today (the clump has been in bloom for almost four
weeks.)  We grow SDB, IB, BB, TB, SIB, SPU, LA, and just one MDB, French Wine,
which blooms as early as March in some years.  Our only absolutely reliable
REB is SDB Smell the Roses, which usually performs all through
September.  Other
REBs perform spasmodically; I need to get them into one bed and water/feed
them intensively, I guess.

Attention turns now to daylily bloom (70+ cultivars), which will carry almost
to Labor Day.
 
We get a big kick in August each year (maybe July this year) out of Gilia,
a biennial dry plains plant that, in its second year,  blooms scarlet
red on spikes as tall as five
feet.  Then, it drops seed and dies.  The first year form (I call them "fuzzy-
wuzzies") stays very short, just a cute little green soft ball that does fine
if you don't water it too much.  All you need to get your cycle going is seed
and a first-year transplant, or seed some of which you hold for a year before
planting.  I had never heard of this plant until it was given to us, but we've
shared it with many others.  Anyone else grow it?

Nancy in zone 5, Illinois, USA

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