I have had the same problem with Immortality. I've had it 5 or 6 year, & it has bloomed once. It didn't bloom even then til I moved it a couple of years ago & it bloomed spring of 06. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? I tried moving a couple of rhizomes again to see if they might do better in a different part of the yard.

I have a lot of space(20+ acres). I am always moving iris to see if they will do better with a different soil type, more or less sunlight and other things that make up what I call micro climates on my property. An iris that was just barely surviving in one area may be a steady bloomer with a lot of increase in another. I suspect that this may have to do with trace elements that are lacking in one location but may be present in another. In is also a fact that different iris like different growing conditions. Some of the older historics will bloom with almost no direct sunlight while some of the modern ones seem to need full sunlight to reach their potential. Also different iris just do well in some parts of the country but will just not grow in others. Lee Mincy

It took Beverly Sills 5 yrs to show me her first bloom, and then it was a deformed, ugly , single bloom on a stunted stalk. In year 6, she threw up several stalks of full height and bud count, and has bloomed reliably every spring since. I'm glad now that I gave her the time she needed to acclimate to my garden, though there were plenty of times I wished she'd just hurry up and die before she blooming.

Amain took 7 yrs to bloom (last year) and did not repeat the effort this year. And it's not even an attractive flower!

Azure Whir took 5 or more yrs to bloom, but when it finally did, I was so impressed with the elegant beauty of the flower that I decided it could stay no matter how infrequently it bloomed.

Laurie

I accidently fertilized some nonbloomers planted in my perennial beds and thought I might lose them to rot, so I watched them like a hawk. I didn't lose a one but I had 7 irises bloom that hadn't before and 4 that I hadn't seen in 3 or 4 years. All previously had great fans, just no bloom. I wouldn't over-do it, but you might try a bit of fertilizer when you start to see growth in spring. I used Osmocote extended release and I'm going to do it again!

Thanks for the follow-ups. I think I should wait on her a little longer!

In growing irises since the 1950s and being around them before that, I have had numerous irises that have never bloomed. I usually leave non-bloomers in the garden in various locations for about five years before I toss them.

Immortality bloomed in my garden only in the heat of July and August on runted stalks, so after several years with it, I tossed it and tried not to buy any irises with Immortality in the parentage. I don't think it has many children anyway. For me, I would say it was one of the most overrated irises of all time. Another thing, it was the first TB to my knowledge that was introduced for $100. I don't know how many sold at that price, but that was the offering price. Even today, I would hesitate paying $100 on the wildest multicolored iris Barry Blyth could come up with. $50 is my current limit for something I like.

Some of the prettiest irises I've bloomed in the last few years have been Pixie Dust, Frosted Pumpkin, Joyce Diane, Matt McNames, Poem of Ecstasy, Bright New Day, and Shadow Warrior. They all bloomed the first year and have continued to perform yearly.

Walter Moores

Walter, I agree that Poem of Ecstasy is one of the most beautiful iris of all time. I don't think I have any of the others you mention. I certainly don't think that Immortality was worth what would be over 200 dollars in today's dollars. That said it has been a dependable bloomer and rebloomer for me as has Brother Carl another Dr. Zurbrigg iris. Zurbrigg's Baby blessed althought a SDB and not my one of my favotites would probably rebloom in the middle of a parking lot. Almost all the Zurbrigg iris I have and I have several are dependable rebloomers. Lee Mincy

Isn't it strange how sometimes you can move something about 1 ft and it will do so much better than where it was before?

Oh Wow, I just love all of Barry Blyths irises. I only have a few and of course I didn't pay a whole lot for them. If I had plenty of money I'd buy a bunch of them. However, I'm on a fixed income and if I paid $50 for an iris I'd have to do without something I really needed around here.

I guess I'll have to continue buying my irises from AIS sales and so forth. I figure I did pretty good considering I would have paid less than 50 cents a piece for all the one's I got last week. That is of course when they were getting ready to close for the day. Although I ended up with over 100 different irises there were several of a bunch of them. I figure I got somewhere between 250-300 iris rhizomes.

Anyone want to come help me finish up planting them? I pray my labels from Paw Paws come in today. Just incase they don't I bought 100 of those flags like they mark your phone lines and so forth with. I can at least write the names on there until the labels do come in.

I bought alot of bicolored irises this spring. Poem of Ecstasy was one of them. I'm sorry but that just looks like it should be in every womens garden. (grin)

I've never heard of Zurbrigg Iris Lee, as ya'll can all see I don't have alot of knowledge about any of the irises. Other than most are pretty and I love to see them all blooming their little heads off.

Happy Gardening Ya'll,
Marian

Dr. Zurbrigg who died last year probably did more than anyone else to bring reblooming iris to where they are today. Although he introduced some that were only spring bloomers, most of his introductions were reblooming iris. Lee Mincy