TBs: Best performers

I've been reading with great interest the reports of award winning
irises' performances in difficult climates.  Right now Sea Power is the
only iris that I would like to try based on its pictures alone.  I
wonder what it would do here where it would have to suffer from five
months of temperatures above 100 degrees F.  The average temperature in
July this year was 96+ degrees.
 
Stairway to Heaven is one that can take it.  Since it does well both for
Laurie and for me, it is surely a great iris.  Yaquina Blue, survives
here.  It seems to be rot resistant, but it multiplies slowly and never
gives more than one stalk to a clump.
 
I have just spent two years growing a guest bed of 150 of the latest
tall bearded irises.  Most were attacked by rhizome rot but recovered
with anti-bacterial soap treatment.  There was a noticeable difference
in growth from different hybridizers.  DeSantis, Sutton's and Burseen's
grew enormous clumps that bloomed over a dozen stalks and yielded just
as many good rhizomes when dug.  Irises from Washington did poorly.
From Cooley's, Dandy Candy, Peppermint Cream and Whispering Spirits did
well; the rest did not.  I didn't have any from Schreiner's.  Cooley's
irises usually perform better for me than Schreiner's do.
 
The most outstanding of all was Lauer's Pink Champagne.  I had two
clumps of it that  bloomed nineteen stalks over a six week period and
yielded sixteen rhizomes.  When I first saw its brilliant shrimp-pink
blossoms loaded with pollen, I ordered two for myself so I could use it
in my own hybridizing.  Those are two of the best clumps in my garden,
even bigger than Ernst's excellent Ring Around Rosie.  I'll have to wait
two years to see what its babies look like.  Introduced in 2000, it has
just won the AM award.  I can't guess what it would do in a cold
country, but if it does well, it's a Dykes candidate for sure.  
 
Francelle Edwards    Glendale,  AZ   Zone 9  

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