I would help if I could but your climate is so different Tug. Not too sure at all why this would happen unless they have had some sort of check and thrown them out of sync? Clutching at straws I'm afraid.

Thank you for responding, Fractal! I keep having to remind new residents here that, "They're not in Kansas (or wherever) any more." I've got to admit, two years or less in two plants isn't really a good sample for comparison! I can only say what so many others tell me, "I treated them the same as the others." They definitely march to the beat of a different drummer, but I would like to know if that is something that I can fix, or if that is inherent to the variety. If the 'Good Looking' doesn't bloom next year, I'm going to see if a friend in northern Arizona will adopt it--maybe it needs colder winters. Ditto for the 'Early Girl' in 2012. Still hoping for feedback from hot climate gardeners, though any info on these kinds would be welcome.

I read on an iris site, on the inet, (sorry can't remember which one at the present time)...that there has been some "tinkering' with Iris to produce a repeat bloomer... perhaps it might be worthwhile checking out the "good looking" and "Early Girl" profiles just to see if that is part of their genetic makeup. It might explain how they got their "time clocks" skewed~! That's the only thing that comes to mind...other than the usual...changes in precip,, culture, etc.

Repeat flowering (remontant) Iris of which there are a few now appearing in the germanica group unfortunately don't appear to include these two in their number. I must say the flower colour of Good Looking is wonderful though.

I wish, Lori! That was my first thought, but the breeder says no, they aren't a re-bloomer, and my experience with re-bloomers is that they grow faster in the winter than other types. In some ways it is acting almost as if it needs cold weather to form blooms, like tulips--not something that I expect from a tall bearded!

Tug, you might want to look out for the following varieties over there as apparently in warmer climes and a little tlc (feeding and watering) some of these re-bloomers can flower almost all year!

Click on the remontant iris tab on the left of the page:

http://www.claireaustin-hardyplants.co.uk/plantlisti/irishomepage.html

The color is one reason that I got it, Fractal. The 'Early Girl' came to me as a freebie from Schreiner's, where I bought some others. Nice company, but they really only know how to grow Iris in coastal Oregon.

Over here, I have been looking at the Reblooming Iris Society information:

http://www.rebloomingiris.com/

The trouble is that some rebloomers work here in the desert, and some don't--that is, they grow and bloom fine, but they don't rebloom. As far as I can tell, I am the only one researching which ones rebloom, here, and which don't. Or, I am the only one talking about it! Still, my question is why the first mentioned varieties were acting so weird.