When I was a child in elementary school I had a teacher who wanted us to draw each week a picture of nature as we saw it: flowers, landscapes, etc. I had little talent for art so I used to hand in a drawing of an iris flower. With an oval for the top (standards) and a few more for the falls, a green stalk and a few sword-like leaves, my pictures always came out pretty good. "You can't draw iris any more because they are no longer in bloom" I was told. With my father's help, I returned to class the next day with a beautiful flower stalk in hand. My dad had selected his iris from early, mid and late season bloomers so the Spring-time display lasted quite long -- much to the dismay of my teacher.

It was quite pleasing to me when I learned of iris that not only bloom in the spring, but rebloom again in the Fall. Also called remontants, some of these cultivars can put on quite a spectacular show in the Fall garden when there is not much competition from other plants. The ability to rebloom varies from cultivar to cultivar and is also affected by local garden conditions (any plant grown well will do better than one that is not) as well as climate zone. In California, some iris will bloom practically all year long. Here in Central New Jersey, Zone 6B according to the National Gardening Association (get your zone from their web site at http://www.garden.org/zipzone/index.php), rebloom tends to be less reliable. It is partly for this reason that I am listing this information here so that other gardeners in this region can know what cultivars might perform well in similar situations for them.

All photos are dated so you can get an idea of what blooms when. That being said, it should also be pointed out, howver, that 2009 was an unusual year climate-wise in New Jersey. Temperatures (all of the talk about global warming to the contrary) were much below normal. In early August we had a streak of very cold nights (much to the unhappiness of my tomato plants) that could have triggered early rebloom on some of these iris.

I find it simply amazing that an iris can show flowers in New Jersey for 5 months of the year ... but that is exactly what Unbelievable Love (introduced by Grise, 1998) has accomplished. In addition to bloom in the spring, this amazing clump (planted in July '08) started reblooming in July. Then August. Then September and into October ... The buds shown below in 10/9 photo opened late October and lasted thru 11/8's killing frost.

Why Reblooming Iris?

I'm sure we all remember that famous gum commercial, "Double your pleasure ... Double your fun ..."
Plain and simple, two bloom seasons are better than one! It seems like a "no brainer". Why would you want an iris that blooms only in the Spring when you could have one that blooms in the Spring and the AGAIN in the Fall.

Why Not Reblooming Iris?

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that! In nature, the sole purpose of the flower is to grow more babies -- to provide for survival and increase of the species. A pretty flower with alot of extra fringe and ruffles, aside from expending additional energy for the plant, does not provide any gain so far as reproduction is concerned -- for the most part. And an iris that reblooms in the Fall is also "wasting" plant energy -- as the flowers usually lack enough time before frost to yield viable seeds. Clearly, being fancy and reblooming are characteristics appreciated by the gardener much more than the plant.
In addition, both of these "traits" tend to be recessive. If a fancy flower is crossed to a plain one, most of the offspring will be plain. If a rebloomer is crossed with one that does not rebloom, most (if not all) of the offspring will lack this trait. If you look at the non-reblooming flowers on the following page (click on photo bottom of this page), you will find that greater variety and sophistication is available than in the rebloomers shown here. Most hybridizers pursue a relatively narrow goal. If you cross your best "fancy" to your 2nd best "fancy" -- the chances are good you'll get a few fancy offspring in the brood, if you are lucky. The same goes with rebloomers. But if you cross you best rebloomer to your most fancy iris, chances are the children will not be as fancy as the one parent nor will they be likely to rebloom.

So you can appreciate that alot of work goes into the hybridizing of iris. While I can attest that it is alot of fun to "dabble" with pollen (it is always the highlight of the day to see your "babies" open for the first time) most of the advances will come from "professional" hybridizers who do this on a large scale. The more times you "roll the dice" coupled with the knowledge of what to expect from what -- the better your chances of having a "winner". The good thing about growing iris is that when someone hits the "jackpot" -- everyone wins when they add that great new addition to their garden collection.

	The Reblooming Iris Society
For more information about iris, please click on logos above to visit their web pages.