Late Stalks: Rebloom Breeding in zone 6A

By Betty Wilkerson

Welcome to my garden.  I'm in Kentucky, zone 6.  Once again, it's been a crazy, crazy spring.  We had some really nice days during the last half of winter.  Good days to clean the iris beds and get ready for spring.  This is when it started getting crazy!  I suspect it was Mother Nature in stress mode, but maybe it was just the irises acting weird.  

Just a few days into the bloom season, it looked like a lot of the early things would not bloom!  Then, stalks started to spring up, or so it seemed, on the ones that should have bloomed earlier.  Everything was out of sequence.  However, it did make rebloom crossing easier because more flowers were blooming at the same time.  

At the end of bloom season, the inevitable depression set in.  It's generally over for another year (except for rebloom). Then I noticed extra stalks showing up. There were a couple on some of the new reblooming seedlings, and one on a slightly older seedling from rebloom breeding lines!

There's one on 'Cameo Blush,' and one on 'Over and Over.' 'Silver Dividends' also put up a stalk but with only two blooms.  (No other introduced irises bloomed at this time.)

'Cameo Blush' (Weiler by Friendship 1998)

'Over & Over' (Innerst 2003)  

Two of the seedlings from 'Tara's Choice' X 'Again & Again' put up stalks. The yellow one, 2152-02re, has cycle  rebloomed in the past and is in my older reselect bed with 2 stalks up.  2152-03 is from my previous "baby" bed and was not seen before.  It wasn't great.  No, I don't always plant all of a given cross at the same time. It depends on space and time, and what I want to see, but these were pretty and several rebloomed, so I planted all of them.


One of my disappointments has been 2527, a cross with 'All Revved Up' & X 'Lunar Whitewash.' 'All Revved Up' can bloom all summer and 'Lunar Whitewash' is a good cycle rebloomer, so I'd hoped for some type of rebloom, with good form.  I got form but none have rebloomed, yet. It was a bit surprising when some of these seedlings started putting up late stalks.

2527-05 ('All Revved Up' X 'Lunar Whitewash') 

2527-01 ('All Revved Up' X 'Lunar Whitewash)

2527-05 ('All Revved Up' x 'Lunar Whitewash')

 The latest developing stalks were 2145-01 ('Pure as Gold' X 'Summer Radiance') and 2603-04, a dark one from ('Lunar Whitewash' X Romantic Evening') X 'Over and Over.' A large group of 2145-01 crosses bloomed and were photographed in the spring, while 2603-04 did not bloom in the spring and this is my first time to see it.

2145-01 ('Pure as Gold' X 'Summer Radiance')

2603-04 (('Lunar Whitewash' x 'Romantic Evening') X 'Over and Over')

With three exceptions, all of the surprise reblooming has been on my seedlings which have at least one rebloom parent. My theory, and it's just a theory, is that I should take this as a signal that, if not rebloom, they have some type of "loosy-goosy" genes that allows later bloom.  One thing for sure, they don't put up these late stalks every year. Come to me, my favored children!

You've had another peek into the strange habits of mother nature as she works in and around Bridge In Time Iris Gardens.  For further reading about reblooming irises, visit the Reblooming Iris Society site  or subscribe to "The Recorder" through the website.

Crazy about Iris:Breeding Reblooming Irises in zone 6

by Betty Wilkerson

As I write this, I'm just coming off a spring season that was among the strangest I've seen in thirty plus years of breeding rebloomers.  There have been springs with drought and springs with incessant rain.  This year, spring started back in the winter.  This was good, because I was able to do a lot of garden cleanup and repair before the bloom season got started.  Then, the season was two to three weeks early.  One positive to this was that everything bloomed out of order, with a second wave of rebloom stalks at the end of the regular season.  For instance, 'Tara's Choice' is usually one of the first to bloom, but bloomed at mid to late season this year.  It was good to see a few new iris faces, new seedlings, and some slightly older, but favorite faces.

'Tara's Choice (Wilkerson 2004)

Hybridizing reblooming irises can be a difficult challenge depending on your location.  I'm in South Central Kentucky, zone 6.  Why is this important?  It's beginning to look more and more, to this hybridizer, like breeding irises in general, and rebloomers in particular, is a regional job.  If you live in an area where recurring iris bloom is the norm, then perhaps you wouldn't understand how other regions of the country, the eastern US in particular, long for irises that bloom from frost to frost.   

Although I can get tunnel vision when I'm out in the garden every day working with the irises, and making crosses, we are not thinking only of ourselves, but also the thousands of people hoping for a group of irises that will bloom from spring through fall, since many gardening people want the beauty of the iris throughout summer.  

Less than half a dozen people are working toward rebloom in the colder climates, zones 5-7, and we are all in different parts of the country.  It is a struggle to find cultivars that work for all of us.  We have different favorites and have produced different cultivars of our own.  Although many of us consult and talk among ourselves, we are each working for things that will rebloom in our own gardens, and hopefully, for others.   

'Immortality' (Zurbrigg 1990)

Before he passed away, Ben Hager predicted we were only 15 years away from irises that bloom all summer, frost to frost.  Although we are a lot closer to this in certain areas of the country, we are still far away from these predictions in zones 5-7.  It's still to be seen if reblooming irises are indeed regional, as once thought, or if we can come up with a number of good irises that can bloom in most regions and zones like their predecessor, 'Immortality.'

For more information search through the Reblooming Iris Society @ www.rebloomingiris.com. Several of us can be found on "Reblooming Irises" and  "Iris Hybridizers" on Facebook. We enjoy talking about irises in general and rebloomers specifically.   

After the Meltdown

Rebloomers tend to be among the first tall bearded irises to bloom in the spring, and they often color the garden for a week before the oncers begin blooming.  In early April, 'Tara's Choice' and several other rebloomers were looking great.  Unfortunately, I knew it was way too early for them to be safe in my Kentucky, zone 6, garden.  

'Tara's Choice' (Wilkerson 2004)

As I finished my last AIS blog entry, the garden was hit by a heavy frost extending over three consecutive nights.  Many of my seedlings were in full bloom and I'd begun making crosses for the 2012 year.  They turned out to be busy work.  The immediate concern was damage.  What was damaged and how bad was it?  

Frost damaged stalk

It was bad.  All stalks were cut down by the frosts.  Most of the bloom was gone for the season, but a small number of irises put up new stalks.  Some of the newer seedlings managed to open a bloom here and there.  Although nothing could be evaluated due to damaged blooms, it was nice to see the colors.  Who would have expected 'Born to Exceed' X 'Renown' (blue bi-tone and white) to produce a yellow seedling?  I'd hoped to expand my photo collection, but unfortunately, I was not able to take many pictures. This blog will be handicapped or limited to existing photos until I have another good bloom season.

There were no pods in the tall bearded section for 2012.  About twenty crosses had been made when the frost hit and none survived.  Another ten crosses were made post frost and none of these took. Recently germinated seedlings were frost bit but few were killed, fortunately.

Since the spring bloom was three weeks early, so it should be no surprise that rebloom also started earlier this year.  'Pinkness' (Byers 89) tried to spring bloom, was damaged. and it was the first introduced iris to put up a new stalk, followed by 'Gate of Heaven' (Zurbrigg 2004) and 'Artistic Showoff' (Wilkerson 2011.)  This is early for my garden, but there are reports of early rebloom in many parts of the US of A.

'Pinkness' (Byers 1989)

'Gate of Heaven' (Zurbrigg 2004) (Yum!)

'Artistic Showoff' (Wilkerson 2011)

Even before these three irises bloomed, two of my summer blooming seedlings gave a show.  Both 2025-02Re and 2130-01Re have bloomed in July but started rebloom in June this year. Both have been used in breeding. 

2025-02Re Wilkerson seedling (Total Recall x 1625-01Re (Star Gate x  (Violet Returns x Breakers) 

2131-01Re Wilkerson seedling (Again & Again X Echo Location) 

I also have a couple of seedlings with stalks showing color.  They won't open by June 25, but I'll give you a little peek at what I'll see in a few days!  2102-04Re has been a favored seedling since it was transplanted from the seedling pot back in the fall of 2007.  At that point, I was impressed with its great root system, and I fully expected it to rebloom.  My enthusiasm gradually diminished as I watched it set bloom stalks each spring, right after bloom season, and waited (impatiently) for signs of a fall stalk.  Each year it sat and waited for spring to send up the stalks.  In 2010 I moved a piece of it to the new beds.  The clump opened three stalks post-frost season this spring.  Last week I was thrilled when I finally spotted a rebloom stalk.  I was shocked because I'd given up.  More about this one in a later blog.  It has great breeding potential.

2102-04Re Wilkerson seedling (Star Gate x (Bridge In Time x (Feed Back x Titan's Glory) X Arctic Fox

1907-10Re Wilkerson seedling (Blatant X All Revved Up) 

1907-10Re bloomed all summer in 2011, had spring stalks, and it has another stalk ready to show color now.  This shows potential for a good 2012 rebloom season.  I hope to have a lot to report in August.  At least I can dream.

Much of the country had an early bloom season in the spring.  Did any of your irises get hit by frost?  Have any of your reblooming irises sent up new stalks already this summer?