CULT?: Winter losses in the Vale of Hope

Following the lead of Linda Mann and others who have posted what they've had
good and bad luck with over the years, I've compiled a list of the named
irises that haven't come back from over the winter, or started to come back
and already died.  All of the losses but one are from iris planted relatively
late last year, in mid-August and September (first substantial freeze here is
usually by October 1st).  The other loss is a second year plant that was
almost dead by winter.  All of my named irises are first or second year plants.

I've got around 350 named iris (maybe 250 cultivars), so I'm happy with the
relatively small rate of loss so far.  No fertilizer, relatively little water
in dry weather, which is probably good for root establishment, some mulch, and
for those that looked most vulnerable last winter, about half, I put rocks
around the rhizomes to moderate the freeze/thaws.  There were stretches of
winter without snow cover.  Almost all of the iris have never bloomed (the
second year plants were put in very late the year before and kept under
plastic for the first winter), so there hasn't been much chance of bloom out.

This regime may be better for keeping plants alive (we'll see in coming years)
than for making them bloom well--hard to beat fertilizer and regular water for
that.  Growth is mostly slow here.  My old fashioned NIODs (um, "historics")
took several years to bloom the first time, but are very reliable now, and
virtually impossible to kill.

Looked OK in fall, but didn't come back:

DARK PASSION (Schreiners 1998)
ICE FLIGHT (Meininger 2001)
KINKAJOU SHREW (Kasperek 2000)

Were in trouble before winter came, and didn't make it:

FIRST INTERSTATE (Schreiners 1991)--I still have another rhizome of it that's
doing fine
ISN'T THIS SOMETHING (Ensminger 1993)
PRETTIE PRINT (Schreiners 1980)--a second year plant that didn't thrive

Stepped on by deer:

SPOUTING HORN (Johnson 2001)

I also lost both rhizomes of a Nebeker seedling, but a bunch of other
seedlings from him are doing well.

In addition, there are a couple whose IDs are uncertain (coming from a source
with IDs that have proven mistaken):

"BOLDER BOULDER" (Magee 2000)--deer stepped on this one
"YO YO" (Schreiners 1978)--have another rhizome of this that just bloomed, but
probably not as Yo Yo (the spots are too big on mine--very pretty, though)

One from the same source sold as "GYPSY WOMAN" (Schreiners 85) was also
stepped on by deer and is on the critical list.  I think it will make it.

Kent
Sanpete County, Utah, zone 4/5, about 6.000 feet up
A few first year SDBs blooming on 5" stalks

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