Re: Re:Growing Iris South Florida
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Re:Growing Iris South Florida
  • From: L* M* <1*@rewrite.hort.net>
  • Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 07:47:28 -0500
LOL - elephant's child, that's me alright. I just want to know everything. Unfortunately, forgetting it as fast as I learn it these days ;-)
If there is genetic control, aren't there always opportunities for breaks that would allow expression of a different a phenotype? Especially with epigenetics.
It may be true that bearded irises in south Florida or south of Dallas may not be capable of continued growth and blooming, but seems like it would be worth trying to find out.
I've tried to grow most of Byer's reblooming introductions here, and most didn't have the disease tolerance to cope with the high levels of environmental stress (humidity, heat, late freezes) here. Since they have at least been reported to rebloom in zone 10, it would be interesting to see how far south they can live in the east.
<Has to do with epigentic gene set triggered by vernalization. Without the vernalization plants are not reset into next epigenetic state. So no bud set, no bloom. Plants can hang on for awhile with vegetative increase of long rhizome growth. But will eventually die as no increases to take over once main growing shoot dies.
Bearded iris need temperature change seasons for ongoing survival. I expect that the plants found in various places in Florida were garden remnants, but never flowered, just were hanging on.> 

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