LIR is a typical Lace Cap macrophylla, with distinctive burgundy stens and colorful fall foliage. When grown in locations with some prolonged sun exposure, the foliage will exhibit some burgundy coloration throughout the spring & summer.
It is not a remontant type and blooms only on old wood, normally. However, many macrophyllas and serratas will occasionally produce a few scattered blooms on new wood in late summer or fall.
In your Zone, you will need to provide some winter protection for the plant to produce a flush of blooms on old wood, in the spring/summer.
See hayseedmans post on this Forum for the most successful methods.
Rb

I got one of the very first LIRs back when they were just selling cuttings of it at the Atlanta Flower Show before it was introduced. I've been real hot and cold on it. I don't think it ever really lived up to all the hype that was built up around it. Now that I've had it for a few years now though, it's actually growing on me a bit more. It is a nice plant, a good strong grower, blooms very reliably. has nice big flowers (deep blue here in GA). I have found over the years as I've done branch propagation and now have more, that the color and performance is VERY dependent on sighting and exposure. The best performing one I have is on the sidewalk off my side yard. It gets a northern exposure on a fence with no real direct sun, but high shade in a overall very bright area.

One virtue I can cite is that it holds up to our heat here in Houston. I have one in a pot on the edge of a shade porch and it has made it through two winters and is on its second summer. It blooms reliably and the contrast of the dark foliage is very nice against the pink blooms. I will say, though that it does not exhibit the red color that the blooms are claimed to attain later in the season. It could be our climate, though. I do like mine, and it weathered my overwatering goof rather well.

I have one and am fairly underwhelmed. It seems to primarily be a foliage plant, and we have plenty of options in the South for nice foliage among broadleaf evergreens.