Irises are inconvenient. They bloom in spring, but should be planted in fall. With bearded iris, this means ordering after strolling though fields of blooming plants, ordering, and waiting until late August to get your plants and put them in the ground. For native iris, we purchased in spring, planted the pots, then removed the pots in fall.
The native iris strategy did not work as well as it might have. We lost one plant, others are scraping by, one is doing well and another is doing great. Unpredictable. Next time, if we buy in spring, I think I’ll just cut the pots so the plants can grow out of them and put them in the ground, pot and all.
The bearded irises are mostly low growers – about two feet, except one variety that’s in there for height. They’re various shades of blue, with one yellow plant included for contrast. The idea is that they’ll grow in a multi-colored clump for a spot of color in the meadow.
Bearded iris will grow with very little water, so they do blend in with California natives, even if some might be against mixing natives with non-natives. Since this is a garden, not a habitat restoration we’re going for the color and extended blooming season with these plants.
The native iris, all planted at the same time in about the same place, are proving to be variable growers. We don’t know why one plant died. It was probably not lack of water since plants next to it remain green and other nearby irises are growing. One plant grew much faster than the others, even though they’re the same variety (Iris ‘Canyon Snow’). There is a bit of variation in sun exposure, but the plants in more sun seem to be quite happy whereas one in a shadier spot died.
The result of our native iris experiment, so far, is that planting a few more plants than you need, or planting more densely, should help compensate for those plants that prefer death.
The native irises formed seed pods, so if we’re lucky they will re-seed and start to colonize areas of the garden. We won’t know this until the end of next spring at the earliest, however.
The bearded irises are from Horton Iris Garden, about half an hour from here. Our varieties are Ming (1998 – yellow), Codicil (1985 – blue/violet), Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999 – dark blue) and Loreley (1909 – yellow and blue). Yes, those numbers are years and represent when the cross was registered. Irises live a long time!