Iris Flowers

Iris flowers are available in a wide range of flower colors, including pink, blue, orange/red, yellow, and purple. They bloom in spring and early summer, with some varieties re-blooming later in the summer. This second flower display is not as showy as the spring display but lasts into the fall. Also many re-blooming iris flowers are fragrant. Iris’s can grow from 8 inches to 4 feet in height, the Dwarfs, which can be as short as 4 inches, to the “Talls”, which can grow to over 42 inches high . They also bloom at different times during April, May and June depending on the variety, the taller Iris Flowers may occasionally require staking . Iris flowers are lovely in bouquets, and their foliage remains a focal point  even after the flowers have faded.

Special Features

Easy care/low maintenance
Multiplies easily but is not invasive
Fragrant (some)
Good for cut flowers

Site Selection
Select a site with full sun and well-drained soil.

 

 

 

Iris flowers  are  easy to grow, requiring very little care. They will reward you with spring and early summer beauty. Be sure and allow for good drainage to prevent rhizome rotting, and for the same reason do not plant them too deeply, mine prefer sitting in the top 2 inches of soil.

You can place  Irises in any, sunny dry spot in your garden, in my garden they  even tolerate complete shade as some of my dwarf Iris flowers are situated in the deep shade of a overhanging hedge and still bear plentiful flowers in early may. But I may have got lucky here as the ideal planting location for most iris flowers is full sun exposure , however  some of the delicate pink and blue iris flowers hold their color better in partial shade, but excessive shade may reduce or prevent flowering.

Iris flowers should be planted  in the fall or late summer. But make sure you wait until the plant has stopped flowering before deciding to split or divide them.

It is best to divide the Iris  during midsummer. Just lift a clump with a fork , removing any rhizomes that look bad,  separating them into groups , containing a couple of leaves a portion of rhizome and a feeder root. Unfortunately,sometimes  these  plants are susceptible to iris borers, so check the rhizomes (fleshy roots)  for holes, discarding any infected ones.

 

 

 

 

The Bearded Iris is easy to maintain flower with few pests. The one and only pest  is  the iris borer, a bug that will burrow into the rhizomes and destroy them . This bug is the larva of the night-flying moth. You can control them  with a spring time application of insecticide to the leaves of the plant  (My Iris flowers have never suffered from this problem,YET ! Touch Wood)

Give the Bearded Iris just an inch of water a week in dry spells and then spend the rest of the time enjoying these beautiful flowers.

Iris Flower Planting Instructions

Plant the iris flower in mid summer to early fall, spacing plants 1 to 2 feet apart, depending on variety. Good  soil drainage is a must. Prepare the flower bed by using a garden  fork or rota tiller to loosen the soil to a depth of 12 to 15 inches, then mix in a 2- to 4-inch layer of compost. If planting a rhizome Iris Flowers, dig a shallow hole 10 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep. Make a ridge of soil down the center and place the rhizomes on the ridge, spreading the roots over both sides of the mound . Fill the hole with soil, and firm it gently. In clay soil (as it is in my garden) the top of the rhizome should be exposed. In sandy soil, rhizomes can be buried with a thin layer of top soil. If planting container-grown Iris flowers, set the plant so the rhizome is at the soil surface but in the center of the pot to allow for growth. Water thoroughly.

Iris Flower Care

Apply a thin layer of compost around the base of the Iris Flowers  each spring, leaving the rhizome  exposed. As flowers fade, cut back the flower stalks to the base of the plant. To encourage a second bloom on re-blooming varieties, promptly remove faded flowers and water  consistently  throughout the summer.

In the Fall, cut away dead foliage and prune back healthy leaves to a height of 4 to 5 inches. Once the soil has frozen, apply a layer of mulch to help prevent roots from heaving out of the soil during any repeated freezing and thawing that may occur. If lifting does occur just recover with another thin layer of top soil. Divide bearded iris flowers every 4 to 5 years, preferably in late summer. Each division should have one or two leaf fans. Older very woody rhizomes that have very few white feeding roots should be discarded.

There are thousands of bearded iris varieties to choose from. Some of the best performing varieties are listed here

Spring Blooming Irises

Re-blooming Iris Flower Varieties

Table 2 displaying Re-blooming Iris Flower Varieties

Iris Flowers come in all colors just not in my garden as they all tend to be blue, as I like the Blue Iris Flowers

Most but not all Irises grow from rhizome systems. There are some that grow from bulbs, Such as the Siberian Iris, Caesar is one variety that I particularly favor for its unique shade of blue of the Iris flowers. The Siberian iris is one of the most easy care plants there is the Siberian irises are among the easiest of all types of iris to raise and bloom in the temperate climatic zones, and grow well in my southern Ontario garden. to find out more about about bulb irises and Siberian iris flowers in particular visit my Siberian Iris Flowers page .