Irises

[Marsha Cassada]

My irises are beginning to bloom. I don't have a large bed, so I need to only have quality ones. Our garden club members take an iris bouquet to various businesses in town at this time. My prettiest ones are large white ones; my duty station is the library.

If I want to purchase a few high quality iris, what varieties should I look for? I think I would like pink and perhaps a pale yellow. I don't care for the very dark ones.

 

[disneyhorse]

Bearded iris? I've got "thornbird"... Probably could send you some rhizomes as my mom hates them. I think they're pretty. To each their own.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

The Thornbird has very good reviews! Some reviews said it was fragrant, some said it wasn't. Yellow/tan seems to be its color, though one site said lavender. Why does your mom not like it?

I ordered a pinkish/orange one from ebay several years ago. It had the most disgusting odor. I pulled it up and gave it away. Wish I could remember the name of it...

 

[vickie gee]

I don't know what they are called but I have some that have mauve tops and deep plum bottoms with yellow fuzzies in the middle. Out of curiosity I smelled of them today. Not bad. Sort of light perfume scent. I also have some lilac colored ones that seems rather simple compared to the two-tones.

 

[disneyhorse]

Nothing wrong with Thornbird... It's a classic! The color is pretty odd... It is a smutty palomino color with a little bit of lavender on the bottom portion. My mom just feels it is not a bright enough color... She likes the bright purple ones.

 

[jacks'thunder]

Oh my gosh!! Would someone please post pictures!!!!! LOL!

Iris are my absolute favorite flower and mine here are just barely recovering from the winter. It's going to be awhile before they bloom. I need and Iris fix!!

lease

 

[Riverrose28]

My leaves are coming up, but no blooms yet. We did have a long winter and some of the leaves are obviously freeze burned from late frost. All of mine are purple.

 

[poniesrule]

My absolute FAVORITE flower!!! Mine won't be blooming for a while either jacks' -- makes me sad! There is a hybrid breeder here in Nebraska, Blue J Iris' and he ships out all over. You should see their place, pretty much insane how many iris' there are! It's fun to look on their website & see the different colors & varieties, prices are reasonable considering.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

Nothing wrong with Thornbird... It's a classic! The color is pretty odd... It is a smutty palomino color with a little bit of lavender on the bottom portion. My mom just feels it is not a bright enough color... She likes the bright purple ones.

Only a horse lover describes a flower as 'smutty palomino coloured' LOL, I like it!!!

oh, and our iris won't be blooming for at least a month, my snow is still not completely gone and last week I still had 6 inches in my arena

 

[bevann]

Schreiners Iris has many beautiful ones.I got their catalog just to drool.Some are VERY expensive.You can often find someone near you who will sell or even give you a rhizome I lucked out and found a lady who had almost 3 acres of iris and day lilies.Had driven by her house on a back road to the fairgrounds for many years and just admired her flowers.Stopped 1 day and ended up talking to her daughter.Her mom is in her 90s and actually developed some new varieties and got a patent on them and got awards from an Iris society.She sold me many rhizomes and I learned a lot.Do not dig them until after they have bloomed-I picked the ones I wanted then I had to wait about 3-4 months and go back to get them.Same thing with the daylilies.They usually won't bloom the first year they are transplanted I like the more unusual ones.Plicatta, orange,burgundy,almost black, blue.some of the Iris sites have lots of educational info.I am a lazy gardener so I REALLY like the flowers you can plant and forget-they come up every year and multiply without any serious effort on my part

 

[Marsha Cassada]

There is going to be an iris show nearby next month so I hope to go to it. I took my iris bouquet into the library today. Sure was hard to get it there without damaging any buds! I set the vase down in a 5 gallon bucket and drove slowly. My town is officially The City of Iris--I think it was some congressional act back in the 30's--so our garden club takes some around to the local businesses. I dropped by the newspaper and told them this was Iris Week, and sent a picture of our librarians posed by the flowers to use in the paper.

My white ones are my very prettiest--tall and full and showy. So that is what I try to take for sharing. We've had so much wind, hail, low temps that the iris are late this year and I feel lucky to have perfect ones to take. I've gone out in the morning the last three days to cut nice stems before the wind gets up.

I will check out Schreiners. A fellow garden club member has lots of iris. When she divides them, she writes the color on one of the leaves with magic marker. I have some pretty ones from her, but they don't spread and hold up like these white ones do.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

beautiful!

 

[jacks'thunder]

Love them!!!!!!

 

[susanne]

.

I'll second Schreiner's -- they're only about an hour from us in Salem. Their fields are a spectacular sight!

One of many things I love about iris: they love fresh horse manure, no composting necessary. They'd grow right under a horse's tail, given the chance.

 

[MindyLee]

If ya ever looked at any of my old posts.... or know me. I love iris and have thousands. And hundreds of colors, sizes, species, and type.

The white one you have is most likely called "immortality".

Not sure how to look for my old posts here, but there was several pics posted there.

As for this yrs bloom. Soon as they start, everyone watch out as I will be posting tons of pics!

I also have 20 brand new hybrids/spaceages coming in this yr. Cant wait!

I also suggest checking out Blue J Iris as they have tons! I buy from them too and easily spend huge $ with them!

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I knew there were some iris growers here but could not remember. So glad you are all chiming in!

"Immortality"? That is good to know.

 

[MindyLee]

prev yr

 

[MindyLee]

more

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

Those are lovely! Just how tough are iris(es?) ? Can they be planted and ignored? Handle grass weeds on their own and still thrive? I have a hillside that I would love to cover with something - poppies, daffodils, tulips, iris....- to give a big display of colour but it would be too much to have to weed etc. and I don't care for wild flower mixes much.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Irises are pretty tough, though they prefer clay over sand. They can grow on a hillside. They are found blooming at abandoned homesites here in OK. I would choose the more common type, the classic purple. I threw a few leftovers out by our lagoon and they are multiplying with zero care--even during our record drought.

But MindyLee will chime in with more experience.

Can you contact a local garden club in your area and ask? Do you ever see any in local gardens?