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New Varieties of Old Favorites |
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Like most gardeners I am always checking out other gardens, looking for new ideas or new plants. While visiting my daughter in NY State, I had to check out her dwarf red Morning glories. They had small intense red flowers on vines with lacey leaves with a number of lobes instead of the usual heart shaped leaves. Of course I had to check it out and in the process have found a number of lovely and unusual varieties to share with you. Since Morning glory is so easy to grow and has so few diseases it has been a favorite for a long time. Seeds from plants native to Mexico and further south were used by the Aztecs, as a ritual hallucinogen and there is still some controversy over some varieties seeds.
The red variety I found on line is ipomoea hederifolia not I.coccinia, and is not native to the U.S. as is many other varieties. It has three lobed leaves with small intensely red flowers.
Ipomea alb or Moon Vine has the usual heart shaped leaves and large fragrant white flowers that open dusk to dawn and are great for evening gardens.
Other varieties includes Flying saucer, with trumpet shaped flowers in white, red, purple, blue and violet-blue; Scarlet O’Hara with large 4” flowers in deep red; miniature “Red Ensign” with carmine red flowers that have a white band and a yellow throat. Also varieties like Heavenly Blue, Chocolate, Carnevale Venezia, Sunspots, Red Feather, Rose Feather, Grandpa Ott and Kholians Black.
I had no idea Morning Glory came in such unusual varieties.
 Something else I came across the really interested me was double blooming or reblooming bearded Iris. They have been hybridized to bloom twice, once in the spring then again in the fall. The original varieties were vey plain with earth tones and dull yellows but varieties have since been produced to rival the vibrant colors of the original plants. Iris hybridizers are now growing new and unusual color combinations including streaks and “broken” colors that were once considered a flaw. These special irises have a talent for producing new rhizomes at an accelerated pace and it’s from these new roots that the late season flower stalks develop. Other varieties of iris that rebloom are called repeaters; then there are other categories such as Continuous Rebloomers, All Season Rebloomers and Occasional Rebloomers.
What a great treat to have iris blooming all season in the garden. I hope you enjoyed the information as much as I did.
Lindi Karmason
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