Welcome back for the 2005 season of Bridge In Time Iris Garden! There are five new Wilkerson Introductions this year. Three of these are very strong rebloomers. The other two are from rebloom parentage, but have failed to rebloom in the home garden; however, each has qualities beyond rebloom.

Reblooming Irises

Reblooming irises are also called remontant. Simply stated, they flower in the regular bloom season and again later. There are four recognized types of reblooming irises: repeat, cycle, everbloom, and sporadic.

The repeat bloomer blooms during the regular season and then puts up addition stalks after other irises have quit blooming, sometimes immediately and sometimes a month later.

Cycle rebloomers have a second, set, bloom season, usually after cooling late summer rains. At one time, I thought these to be the most desirable in my zone 6 area. However, cycle rebloomers can bloom too late in areas that experience early frost.

The term everbloomer indicates irises that bloom continually from early spring season until the first hard freeze. In my area, I would need a large planting for this to happen. More realistically, it means these irises can, and often do, bloom at any time. Genetically, these irises are programmed to rebloom at any time their needs are met.

Sporadic rebloomers can bloom at any time. Often, these irises are everbloomers in more temperate climates. As with the everbloomers, they can and do bloom any time from early bloom season through the first freeze. They have a weaker rebloom tendency than the everbloomers and they often do not bloom a second time in colder regions. Occasionally, all of their needs will be met in colder climate and they grace us with their lovely blooms. This definition is intended for bearded irises; however, all iris groups that produce rhizomes can develop cultivars that are capable of rebloom.

History of the Wilkerson Irises

In the early 80’s I ran across an ad in the Henry Fields catalog. They offered fall blooming irises! It was a new and novel concept for me and I ordered them immediately! The next fall Eleanor Roosevelt & Southland bloomed in my garden, along with a couple of others I couldn’t identify. I soon learned there was another name for these weird irises. They were rebloomers!

When I first became interested in modern irises, one of the main complaints I heard from the average gardener was that irises just don’t bloom long enough to be worth the time and energy required to maintain them. When a fellow iris enthusiast challenged me to make a few crosses, I thought about those fall blooming irises. The rest is history.

In the Seedling Patch
(visit seedling page)

Relocated in 2003, Bridge In Time Iris Gardens is perched on the top edge of Bay’s Ford Creek bank in Allen County KY and it is a zone 6 garden. It is approximately forty five miles north east of Nashville TN.

What a year! Being able to plant my seedlings in my own space was quite a thrill! In addition, it was great fun looking for new breeding material. Days, even weeks, were spent visiting iris shows, touring gardens, pouring over catalogs and browsing Internet websites.

Over all, I planted over 250 varieties for trial and observation in the near future! Some are new introductions, some are old favorites, while others are rebloomers I’d failed to purchase in the past due to limited space.

Without question, the fall seedling patch was the most fun! Crosses I’d made in the spring of 2003, and transplanted to the garden in May of 2004, began putting up stalks. It didn’t surprise me when cross eighteen twelve (1812) was the first to send up a stalk.

The red and yellow patterns, both variegata and plicata, have intrigued me for years. Eighteen twelve was not an accidental or impulse cross! It’s a goal that’s been tucked away in the back recesses of my mind, and has, finally, been brought to the frontal lobes!

In anticipation of working with this pattern, I was searching for red on yellow plicatas, and Mike Sutton suggested Innocent Star, a 1999 introduction from George Sutton. It produced several stalks in the spring of 2000, and I was successful with pollen from both Rebound and Radiant Bliss (2005.) Both crosses produced a high percentage of rebloomers.

In the spring of 2003, with an eye to increasing the yellow contrast without losing much in rebloom or form, I crossed one of these seedlings onto Lemon Reflection. This cross became # 1812. There is a trace of plicata in the ancestry of Lemon Reflection and I’d thought it might carry the gene. I’d hoped to produce a red on yellow plicata in the first generation. It didn’t happen!

In early May 2004, I planted 92 seedlings from this cross. Only 2 died, and five or six failed to grow. Before our first freeze, over 50 of these seedlings had produced stalks. None were plicata! But, watching approximately thirty of these bloom, one after the other, was great fun. I keep the germination pots over for a second year and could get another 100 seedlings from this cross.

Before the first heavy freeze I found stalks in six of the seventeen crosses made in 2003! Some were surprises. Some were disappointments. But, most were great fun and left high expectations for the future! All were another rung on the ladder of experience!