Whistling Swan—‘‘withstands hottest sun or tearing rain’’ Robert McCormick, Ohio Page 31 


EARLY BLOOMING INTERMEDIATE IRIS 
If you have been growing only the tall-bearded varieties of iris, the time will 
come when you will wish that you could stretch the season out longer. There IS a 
way to extend the iris season and the way to do it is—BACKWARD. 


To really begin at the beginning you should have some dwarf iris, which start to 
bloom a month or so before the tali-bearded. But our purpose, on this page, is to 
interest you in the early-blooming intermediates. 
The EARLY BLOOMING INTERMEDIATES are, generally speaking, the result 
of crossing dwarfs with tall beared varieties and such hybrids are between the two 
in size, height and blooming season. Their height is between 16 and 28 inches and 
they have an unusual vivid clearness of coloring, altho the color range is much more 
limited than among the later flowering tall-bearded varieties. 
The intermediates are doubly valuable because they bloom at a period when 
there is a definite lull in the garden. Daffodils and spring-flowering shrubs are 
through blooming and altho tulips bloom at this time, these are not happy every- 
where and inclined to die out. Intermediate iris, on the other hand, have rugged 
constitutions and are generous in the profusion of bloom. The culture is the same as 
that of the tall-bearded. 
As an extra dividend, some of these intermediates bloom again in the fall, if 
conditions are favorable, which implies that the plants are not allowed to become 
crowded, that moisture has been sufficient for new growth and that the fall tempera- 
tures hold favorable for this second crop of flowers. 
Z 
Z 
& 
4 

IVORY ELF 
