This is one of the reasons I love gardening so…along with the challenges come such unexpected and beautiful rewards. I planted these Bearded Iris about a year ago, forgot about them and either forgot or never knew what color flower to expect. Then along comes spring…kinda like Mother Nature on strong coffee, gettin’ stuff DONE!…and I glance over to see this amazing blue flower gracing my garden.
Iris are fun plants. There are over 200 named varieties, and the word “Iris” comes from Greek, meaning “rainbow”. They don’t seem to take much care, and bigger or more beautiful flowers are hard to find. Rhizomes (the “bulb” part of the plant) should be planted with the roots down and the tip up, just below soil surface or barely poking above. Avoid air pockets when planting, by placing a small mound of soil in the little planting hole you’ve created and spreading the roots over the pile. If you plant more than one (Iris looks great in groups of 3 or more), orient the fans (leaf-groupings) away from each other. In clayey soil plant them a bit high, create a little hill of sandy soil mixed with a little of your clay, or both…they like good drainage. Well-decomposed organic matter mixed into the soil will be helpful as well. Plant new rhizomes or divide existing ones in fall (September-November). They like full sun in most climates, but seem to do better here with intermittent, filtered or afternoon shade. Keep them fairly moist, but if soils stay wet they’ll rot.
Like all of gardening, expect some success and some failure. Of the 5 groupings of Iris I’ve planted, two have taken off and flowered, one produces leaves but hasn’t yet given me flowers, and two have died off. One of the ones that died was a variety named “Immortal”. Such irony! 🙂
