Re: CULT: Favorites - long

This is my second post - the first was a list of favorite growers, ones
I am usually pushing at our rhizome sales for newbies.  The sure fire,
different, sure to please.

My mental wander thru the garden, eagerly looking for blooms, starts
earlier, hoping for survival, then hoping that the terminal hasn't been
killed by a late freeze, eliminating bloom, then eagerly waiting for
bloom.  Therefore, several of these are most anticipated because they
don't always bloom and because they capture my heart in some way.

The first is my own seedlings (of course!).  Both the ones that have
bloomed and the ones not seen yet.  I can hardly wait to see the new
ones, but am also eager to see how a different year's growing season has
affected the older ones.  The single lavender seedling out of a row of
red-bearded whites; the single red-bearded orange out of a row of
yellows.

The first among others is I. germanica, the lovely, lilting, bitone,
lavender blue with dark purple falls, fragrance sweet as Concord
grapes.  If it escapes the freezes, it blooms very early, before late
spring/summer humidity hits.  In my mind's eye, it is a spectacular
clump at the corner of my house, sparkling in clear, spring morning
sunlight.  This was the only iris I knew as a child, was the first iris
I transplanted, and rewarded me with over 100 bloomstalks lining our
sidewalk the following spring.

DUSKY CHALLENGER - this always blooms, always is special, always
anticipated, and never has enough stalks - I would love 1000 stalks of
this one.

PINAFORE PINK - this one always used to bloom while struggling with the
fescue & late freezes, but has finally about given up.  I'm hoping I've
rescued it - unbelievably huge pink flowers, out of proportion to the
stalk, poorly presented, so overstated that I look for it every year to
see if it is really as huge and amazing as I remember.

MULBERRY ROSE - I look forward to this one as much as DUSKY CHALLENGER.
Such intense, iridescent color, FUSCHIA ROSE would have been a better
name.  A tough, reliable grower & bloomer.

"Greenback blue" - an unknown, very tall, wavily ruffled, prolific light
blue, purchased from a Schreiners catalog sometime in the last 40 yrs by
Edith Vinyard, the lady in Greenback, Tennessee, 40 miles away, who
grows such wonderful irises.  I see this one in my mind's eye as it
grows for her - tall, lovely, loaded with blooms fluttering in the
breeze.  It usually is frozen out or badly stunted here, never looks
like much, but the plant multiplies well and is certainly an eagerly
anticipated one - 'maybe this year'...

GINGERBREAD CASTLE - I'm not sure exactly why this one has won my
heart.  Maybe because it is another one that has ignored my neglect and
sends up a stalk thru the weeds to remind me to look at it.  I rescued
some of this from the shade & weeds, divided it and had a lovely short
row of it bloom last spring.  Nothing spectacular about the bloomstalks,
but it is a lovely reddish golden brown here.

Then the most longed for, looked at, watched pot that takes forever to
boil are the new arrivals from the year before.  Will they look like
their pictures?  Or their descriptions?  Will they exceed expectations
or disappoint?  Will the buds give a hint of what's inside?  I love to
watch the really dark irises' buds mature and open & am always
fascinated by the green ground and colored stitchery of plicata buds
that open to blue and white.

From this point, my mental garden walk takes me several places at once -
I have to see how AFTERNOON DELIGHT, WAR CHIEF, & PLAY WITH FIRE have
done this year - usually reliable and satisfying to stare at.  I.
reichenbachii - in my mind, always grass green and loaded with bloom
like the photo from last spring.  IMMORTALITY, always blooming, always
erratic timing and abundance of stalks.  SIGN OF LEO (I think), blooming
in spite of frozen buds; the unknown prolific red-black with colors like
SUPERSTITION but older form.

Is that 10?  Mostly historics, mostly because I've been able to
anticipate them for more years <g>  If you want a list of more recent
favorites, I can go for another walk....PARKRIDGE CHALLENGER,
HAPPENSTANCE, AVE, LEADING LIGHT, HELLO DARKNESS, SUDDEN IMPACT,
SUSQUEHANNA (sp?), RITES OF SPRING, ARMAGEDDON....anticipation....

Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8



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