The iris season is getting under way and, by choosing carefully, you can enjoy these gorgeous flowers right through until high summer. Iris flowers may look hopelessly tender, but the ones I mention here will stand up to almost anything a Scottish winter will throw at them.
Irises come in many forms. Some thrive in dry spots with very free drainage, and the reward for a baking sun is a wonderful floral display the following year. Others need moist or even wet conditions. But they all insist on good sunlight. Without that, you can forget about enjoying many flowers.
There are bulbous and rhizomatous irises. Any autumn-planted Iris reticulata bulbs should be coming up now and may have started flowering in warmer parts of the country.
Reticulatas are elegant little plants that certainly punch above their weight. They flower when only 10cm tall, so they sit beautifully in a pot and you can savour their delicate scent by arranging pots at a nose-friendly height. I much prefer that to crawling along a muddy path.
Their flowers are shades of blue and often intricately marked. If planting in a container, choose one large enough to let you try mixing varieties. Pauline is a perfect specimen, with one of those almost black blooms that I find totally captivating. Blend these velvety petals with the clean, early morning blue of Cantab.
In late spring, Iris bucharica follows on from reticulatas. At 30cm tall, it’s a little larger than the reticulatas and also grows well in a pot. Bucharicas can also be planted in the open ground. Unlike most of the much more tender juno group of irises, this native of Bukhara in Uzbekistan is vigorous enough to survive here.
This is a charming little iris, its glossy green leaves clasping their stems and growing like a fan. In late April, the white standard petals are surrounded by five or six subtle, golden yellow falls. Smelling of freesias, these flowers emerge from the leaf axils.
Continue the iris bonanza with xiphium irises, which need slightly moister soil. This group simply isn’t grown as much as it should. The plants are also known as Dutch irises because, in the 17th century, Dutch nurserymen started working tirelessly on these Spanish plants, developing a wide range of varieties. They also learned to use different temperatures to control growth and make them flower all year round. They became perfect candidates for the cut flower industry.
Perhaps as a result, many varieties are bi and multi coloured, and have become a tasteless travesty for such a superior flower. But I’d describe Gypsy Beauty as a real iris, the yellow flashes on its falls bleeding in to grey verging on green between the strong purple veining.
Iris latifolia, a Pyrenean species, also known as English iris, flowers in late May, like Iris xiphium. It’s hardier than xiphium and needs wetter ground than most irises, but it couldn’t handle the permanent sog that the Iris laevigatae group require. Our native yellow flag iris, Iris pseudocorus, is a member of this group, and wallows contently in a boggy corner of my ground.
Confusingly, perhaps, these moisture-loving irises are rhizomatous, as are bearded irises. They need the opposite conditions: full sun and very well-drained soil. Their rhizomes must sit on the soil surface and soak up what sun they can. Coming in the widest range of shades and colours, they’re the best known and most popular iris.
When extending my greenhouse last year, my finest bearded irises had to flit to a new bed. Here’s hoping they’ve taken to their new home. But I have another new bed, and though I’ll resist a complete iris takeover, I do need room for a few specimens in shades of apricot, orange and tawny red. I can't wait for the first, ruffled flowers of Maid of Orange, which are said to smell of the fruit.
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