“It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter.”
Walking through the Tanger Arboretum next to Wheatland Mansion, I was surprised to see a bed of blooming iris on St. Nicholas Day. Added to the garden about two years ago, they came from a Wheatland Garden Club member’s garden as pass-along plants from her grandmother. So old, they probably aren’t even a named cultivar. According to club co-founder Donna Mentzer, “this is the first year they have bloomed, which would be consistent with the remontant, or reblooming iris which need to be establish for two to three years before rebloom.”
Donna shares that “there is an old yellow cultivar called ‘Sangreal’ that was hybridized back in the 1930s and also a nice yellow iris with a bit of ruffle that was hybridized in 1987 by Beyers – it is a consistent rebloomer and was named ‘Billionairie’. I don’t know the parentage of either, but it seems this may have been a parent for one or both of these, judging from the great bloom. Since this is the first rebloom, I can’t tell if this is when they would normally bloom or if the rather warm autumn was the cause.”
Although there are a number of reblooming iris on the market, Donna is partial to a pure white cultivar called “Immortality,” which she says is one of the oldest and most reliable.