and now for the SDBs ...

Wanda,

Up here with my extremely short season and tough climate, I usually only get about 20-30% bloom on first year irises (first spring after planting the previous summer). By the next year, I'll get around 40-50% bloom, and by year 3 I'll get bloom on most of them. I have a few irises that I've been growing for 5+ yrs without ever seeing bloom, though.

Patient, aren't you? Irises are much more challenging to grow than daylilies and my other perennials.
They take more care, but are incredible in bloom. You are really opening my eyes to the diversity of dwarfs.

That's why I add new irises every year. That way, I always have a crop of new-to-me irises to bloom that have settled in for a few years and are ready to show me their colors. It doesn't bother me that last years' additions don't bloom as long as I have new faces to look at!

Gee, Laurie, I thought you added new irises every year because you were addicted but the truth is you were just being practical..... yeah, right. LOL

I'm just very practical about my addiction (as opposed to being practically addicted). ;-)

This message was edited Jun 9, 2005 11:30 AM

who's addicted to iris? Not me. huh.

Yeah...me neither. I'm just growing 400 varieties in my backyard so that my neighbors will have something to look at! :]

ROFL, FF!! I'll have to tell that one to my husband.

What? You let those Philistines (non-believers) enjoy your garden? I bet they look at them all and say "I've got THAT ONE at home, and THAT one, And THAT one...." Yep. they have a yellow one, a pink one & a purple one..

Wanda~

LOL! Actually, I usually have my neighbors trying to RAID my garden! I hate to admit this, but I have so many extras left every year that I usually put a box out in front of my house with a sign saying "free iris". I'm happy to say that this year, I'll have fewer extras because I've found this website and now have at least one trading partner!

... and your trading partner has been waaaaay too busy photographing all the new irises that are popping here everyday to go through all of YOUR new additions to the PDB!

Heck, just send me one of everything ya got! LOL!

Actually, Laurie, I AM planning on sending you quite a few bonus SDB's and MDB's that you didn't ask for, unless you tell me otherwise. I won't bother sending any modern TB's unless they're EXTREMELY vigorous!

I have lots of extras in the modern TB department. If anyone is willing to pay postage, they're yours. I'll know exactly what I have to offer by the end of July, but I have a rough list made up now if you want to see some possibilities (but no guarantees). If you're interested, send me an email. Any takers?

Flowerfrenzy, I wish that I had you for my neighbor! I bet the view is incredible. Much better than junk cars!

Flowerfrenzy,
You've got mail.

ERAMOSA SKIES is another new face for me, and I have him planted almost next to his mother, RAIN DANCE, and not far from his father, CHUBBY CHEEKS. He definitely takes after his mother's side of the family.

DARK VADER (in this photo) is one of my nicer dark SDBs, but he couldn't match DARK CRYSTAL's performance this year.

LITTLE ANNIE's been a tough one to catch this year. Either she opened blooms with extra petals, or she opened them all smooshed up in the middle of the clump down in the fans. This bloom nearly made it to the top of the fans and has the correct number of petals, but it still doesn't do justice to this little lady's beauty in the garden.

So many beauties. Why did I wait so long to begin with SDBs myself? Thanks Laurie and everyone for sharing yours. My SDB season is WAY over for this year, in fact the last TB bloom just faded yesterday. So I will live vicariously through the forum. :o)

I'll post a few of mine that y'all don't have listed so you can see them too. Here's Baby Prince.

Roni

This is what SEA MONSTER looks like without the trouble of bad spring. It really does have an olive cast to the falls.

Just one more for now. My favorite maiden surprise this year. Scout by Lloyd Zurbrigg.

Roni--sweet little dwarfs!

Welcome to DG, Roni! Love your Baby Prince.

Roni, you just solved a puzzle for me. I recognize your "Sea Monster' as one that was sold to me as "Monster"! No wonder I couldn't find a listing on the little darling.... :)

Funny thing is, Wanda, I got my SEA MONSTER from Roni in a trade. Same plant, different growing conditions!

That will be growing next to Nessie, yes? You probably need Sea Monster too... http://daylily.net/gardens/pleasantvalley/



This message was edited Jun 13, 2005 3:17 PM

Wanda - glad I could help solve your mystery.

Laurie - thank you for mentioning DG elsewhere on the web. I love this place. I posted Sea Monster to show that irises can different from zone to zone weather to weather.

Moby - what is Nessie? The link you posted showed me a picture of SEA DRAGON which is stunning. I don't care for Daylillies (at least the NoIDs I have) but that one could start another addiction.

Here's another SDB I have -- this one reblooms for me.

Now I have a question. This iris bloomed like crazy this year and is supposed to be Gentle Grace but the spot looks purple and appeared to bleed into the white. All the pictures I've seen make it a nice crisp spot of blue on the falls.

Is this Gentle Grace? If not, what might it be?

Roni,

I don't think that's GG. The hafts markings are entirely different, yours has a white stripe extending from each beard tip down the length of the fall, yours appears to lack ruffling, yours appears to have a longer beard and narrower hafts, and of course the spot on yours isn't blue as it would be on GG.

I'm afraid I don't recognize yours at all. I do think it's interesting, though.

Roni ~ yes, you are correct, it was SEA DRAGON I was referring to. A big concrete Nessie, as in Loch Ness monster, resides in Wanda's yard.

Don't care for daylilies, huh? Why don't you come visit here for just a bit ~ http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/519838/

Moby -- Haha, I don't need enabled! But do they have dwarf varieties (I might could squeeze in a few between irises if they don't shade the irises to awful much).

Laurie -- Thanks for the confirmation. I think I was had by an unscrupulous trader in my first year elsewhere. Seems like everything that person sent me was imposters. :-s

A very, very late arrival. GNU GENERATION is making up for tardiness by providing a huge bloom (for an SDB) with a subtle color-break pattern of white splashes on yellow ground. This is new to my garden, and I'm eager to see it blooming in a mature clump in another year or two.

I LOVE late. Seeing an iris pop up with my early daylilies is a tickle. And yes , Moby, "Sea Monster" has moved under Nessie's belly. Now, to get rid of the rest of the grass around her & plant more iris/daylilies... Ha! And my hubby placed Nessie so I could mow between her loops? There goes the grass!

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/506935/

Laurie, how often do you reccomend dividing the SDB?

Susan

Susan,

It depends on the cultivar, how closely you planted them in the first place, and your specific growing conditions. Some SDBs are more vigorous growers than others, so they will require more frequent division. Close planting will require more frequent division to prevent the clumps from growing into each other. Longer growing seasons, fertile soil, adequate moisture, and full sun will allow the clumps to grow larger, faster; so they will require more frequent division.

In my garden, I generally divide every 3-5 yrs depending on the above variables.

Laurie

In my garden, I have to divide quite a few of my SDB/MDB clumps every 2 years because we have a longer growing season. Others are every 3 years and a few are every 4 or 5 years due to slower growth. Like Laurie said, it varies a lot, but just look for when they start flowering less than they used to or are crowding out other clumps of irises.

I have a wonderful friend in Delaware who is up to her kneecaps in 60+ varieites of Dwarf iris. I sent her 3 big boxes of sun & shade perennials, now SHE owes ME! Dwarfs--here I come!

I love the SDB! You can put them in front of the taller ones and they don't take so much room! Lucky you!!

Seems I have one more SDB to add to this thread, after all. This little cutie bloomed with the other SDBs earlier this year, but it wasn't what it was supposed to be, so I didn't post it. Geez, I could start another thread just for all my unknowns and mislabels. Anyhow, Mike Sutton (from whom I acquired this iris) just IDed it for me as AURORALITA.

I wouldn't have ordered it from the photos I've seen of it online, but it's really quite attractive in person, and it's very vigorous and floriferous once it gets started.

Laurie, I like the markings on that one...