Is "Rock Star" a slow grower?

I bought this last year, and it hasn't grown like the other iris I got around the same time. Can anyone tell me which ones are the toughest to grow. Untill I get to growing these beauties, I don't want to pick difficult ones at first. I imagine, like hosta or any other plant, some grow better than others.

Annie

I can tell you from personal experience that Rock Star's performance in my garden has been meagar at best. That's why I'm getting rid of it this year. It either blooms out on a crooked stalk and drops its leaves, or doesn't bloom and doesn't increase.

Some hybrids from California have also been noted to have a hard time adjusting to colder climates. While I love some of his colors and patterns, I have found some of Joe Ghio's hybrids to be quite stubborn when it comes to increase. Here, I think it's because of the rain, but I've also heard of problems due to colder climates as well. Some that have been particularily whimpy have been: Heaven, Vapor and Entangled. I still grow these cv's because of their beautiful flowers, but I've lowered my expectations of their increase. However, to be fair, I have others of his that do pretty well in my garden, though not usually as well as other hybridizers'.

I don't mean to disrespect any hybridizer of irises, because they all work very hard and are genius at what they do, but I'm just trying to give my personal experience. In all fairness, I know that some patterns, especially luminatas and fancy plicatas, are notorious for being slow, and Joe Ghio works on these a lot. The slow growth habit of some of his stuff is probably due largely in part to the type of irises he's working on.

On the upside of growth, I have found the following hybridizers' irises to take off exceptionally well in my garden. I usually can't lose with any iris from:

Schreiners

Paul Black (Mid-America Gardens)

Tom Johnson (Mid-America Gardens)

Terry Aitken (Aitken's Salmon Creek Garden)

Keith Keppel (except for Spirit World and Flights of Fancy, which are both luminata/fancy plicata types)

Barry Blyth from Australia (Tempo Two)

Ben Hager (Cooley's)

I have also found Lowell Baumunks hybrids (he's from Colorado) to be very vigorous. He's a bit newer, and thus, fewer intros, but you might want to try some from him as he is in a similar zone to yours. He is doing some excellent work with the fancy plicata/luminata types and his tend to increase and grow better than others I've tried. His website is: www.iriscolorado.com.

Hope I've helped some. I'm sure every person you talk with will have varied experiences. Some of it's just by trial and error.

This message was edited Jun 25, 2005 3:15 PM

This message was edited Jun 25, 2005 3:17 PM

Oh, I'm thankful for any and all the information I can get! Thank you for the web-sites!

While i'm here asking questions, does person trade on the different forums, or do you have to do that on jsut the plant exchange? ( I know, I need to take the time and real up on all of the rules here, and Im trying.)

Thanks you again,
Annie

Rock Star does pretty good for me in Tennessee. I'd say in the meduim range between fast and slow growers (but then each year someone always wants a piece of it, so I end up disturbing the roots every summer). Maybe it likes the hot, humid weather here.

Neil

Welcome to Dave's Neil...been here long? I for one can't wait to get my Rock Star that I ordered this year. It's so much like Queen in Calico but it's got horns! DH loved it when we saw it at local AIS show.

Roni
sitting in front of a/c drinking iced pink lemonade.

This message was edited Jun 26, 2005 5:25 PM