Flower Power : Iris

 

 

DON'T TOUCH MY FLAGS

 

“Don’t touch my flags” was an oft repeated warning of my father in the days when his irises, ranged along the top of the garden beside the back gate, were at the peak of their flowering prowess.  I have little doubt that the last thing on the mind of a ten year old on those unfettered days in early summer was interfering with his flowers, but of all the features of his garden he obviously felt very protective of them and they were a source of great pride.  And rightly so as they can be cantankerous and uncooperative, and if he’d managed to get an entire bed into bloom he’d naturally want to preserve them for as long as they were in their prime. 

 

Flags, or flag irises as they used to be known are the Snickers of the flower world as they’ve now undergone a re-branding into what these days is more readily recognisable as the bearded iris.  The bearded iris falls broadly into three categories:  tall, intermediate and miniature, and without going too boffin all over you, as there are many further sub-classifications, this is all you really need to know. 

 

Since those long ago summers of my father’s garden, the iris has undergone an entire transformation, not merely in name but also through breeding development and hybridisation there are now so many more varieties and exciting colour combinations available.  Much more so than anything my father had or could ever have imagined.  He had only one common sort which was then the norm and despite his satisfaction with them, quite prosaic by comparison with the diverse range on offer today.

 

 

 

I have to be careful when writing this post to rein it in a bit and not to run too freely to every exaggerated adjective available.  Such as proclaiming that they illuminate and irradiate with their velveteen blush or that they sway majestically above everything else displaying their delicate, quivery furry tufts (beard).  Or that known as they are to be the personification of the rainbow their timeless beauty can soothe your 21^st century soul like a metaphysical balm. 

No, of course I won’t do any of that, but merely to say that these are undoubtedly my favourite flowers, in fact probably my most favourite anything.  They’re head and shoulders above literally everything else and I could extol their virtues all day.  To me a garden’s just not a garden without them.

 

And what is helpful to know is that the Goddess  ‘Iris’ in Greek Mythology was the divine messenger of the Gods.  She travelled on the arc of the rainbow delivering messages between the earth, the sea and the sky.  So you see when you gaze on the splendour of an iris in bloom what you’re seeing is not just a form unparalleled anywhere in nature but something intrinsically magical and mythical which has a special indefinable something that transcends time.   

 

But, there’s the rub, they won’t come quietly, veering as they do toward the cussed, there’s no doubt that they can be challenging.  They’ll fetch up kicking and screaming and it could be a few years before they’ll deign to reward your efforts with any flower.  Yep, these guys sure want it all their own way.  Perhaps that’s their charm.  You know how hard it is to get them to their peak, so the pay off’s worth the effort.  Perhaps I should caveat that by agreeing that yes, there are some easier and more reliable varieties, before the messages start flying in – got it.  But I never said I was trail blazing with the mundane, and the more you experiment with the obscure the more you encounter their stubborn, obdurate and uncooperative streak.

 

Beginners Guide

First thing to know is that they resent being in a pot.  They will punish you for this offence by almost certainly never flowering if left there. 

 

 

 

When you get them they’ll come either as a rhizome from a pack with no foliage or in a deep pot from the garden centre. 

Either way you need to plant with the rhizome sitting on top of the soil.  This is because, to flower, they need to feel the sun on that exposed rhizome.  If it’s buried below the earth they’ll rot off. 

 

 

Secondly, on the underside they’ll be some long hairy roots, try and position and spread these out to the maximum depth possible as these are the tap root or roots and these forage deeply for water sources. 

 

Also important is to have them in as much prolonged sunshine as possible.  Never plant them in shade if you want a long and happy life together.  It’s also worth considering if you’re going to put them in a mixed bed or isolate them by themselves.  The problem with incorporating them among other plants is that the other plants can develop and spread across the iris’s rhizome, thereby eradicating any sunlight and so diminishing the iris’s ability to thrive in the requisite conditions.  I know I’ll get comments about this as many will say that they’ve had much success with their irises in their mixed beds but for me, a singular bed devoted to irises is such a spectacular sight, it’s worth separating them and then you can concentrate on keeping them weed free.  OK, so you only get them in flower for maybe three weeks out of the entire year, so I’ll have to leave it up to you to decide if you feel that’s a worthwhile sacrifice.

 

Another advantage of segregation is that you get to really monitor the watering.  This is important if you’re giving your mixed borders a daily dousing as irises only need watering once a week or maybe twice if the temperature rises above the mid 20s.  The reason for this is that those long tap roots will be running deep, anchoring them in place while searching out hidden water at the same time.  Overwatering is another common mistake that can lead to an untimely end. 

 

Each year the iris will form a clump which develops in a larger and larger mass, eventually running all the individual plants together.  Every few years you’ll need to lift these raggedy clumps and divide them.  There are a few reasons for this but predominantly because each rhizome will flower only once.  After flowering that rhizome will be redundant and healthy new young growth will appear along the outer margin which will develop to full flowering maturity in the following season.  So eventually you’ll have a lot of old and useless non-flowering central growth which is what you’ll be removing by dividing the clump and the bed will look a lot neater for it once you’ve replaced only the productive material.

 

The last thing to know is that after flowering you can tidy up the leaves by cutting them into this fan shape formation.  The tips will dry out a bit but it won’t do them any harm, it looks pretty smart and is thought that by reducing the height stops them rocking around in the wind and putting stress and leverage on the root system. 

 

Well, that's about it, as this is not really a subject for a blog post, it's more a subject for a lifetime of discovery.  So to recap.  What have we learned?  Get some irises into your life.  Basically that’s it and it’s a decision you won’t regret. 

 

 

ANYWAY, AS THEY SAY AROUND HERE 
 

 

You have been warned!!!

 

 

The Glory of the Garden

 

 

 

 

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views,

Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,

With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by,

But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye,

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,

You'll find the tool and potting sheds which are the heart of all,

The cold frames and the hot houses, the dung pits and the tanks,

The roller, carts and drain pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

 

 

And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and 'prentice boys,

Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise,

For, except when seeds are planted and we should to scare the birds,

The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose

And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows,

But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,

For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

 

Our England is a garden and such gardens are not made,

By singing "Oh how beautiful" and sitting in the shade,

While better men than we go out and start their working lives,

At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner knives,

There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,

There's not a hand so weak or white, nor yet a heart so sick,

But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,

For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

 

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,

If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders,

And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden

You will find yourself a partner in the  Glory of the Garden.

Oh, Adam was a gardener and God who made him sees,

That half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees,

So when your work is finished you can wash your hands and pray

For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

 

 

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

 

RUDYARD KIPLING

 

 

Thuggery in the Shrubbery

 

  

 

 

It’s all too easy to get carried away in the garden centre, no? 

 

Temptation abounds.  This will be familiar and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about if you’re a real maniac plant collector. 

 

A Hortoholic. 

 

A Plantophile. 

 

 

 

 

You arrive  strongly determined not to splurge.  You try and be strong, but then, just out of the corner of your eye you espy the very thing that you’ve been searching for, for so very long and you succumb.  Resistance is futile, so you pop it in the trolley. 


And suddenly that’s it, the switch is flicked and you’re off darting between the displays capriciously now snatching up anything on a flimsy whim. 

 

It’s like Supermarket Sweep but with pollen. 

 

Or the The Secret Millionaire let loose after being cloaked in compassionate incognito too long, and then rampaging round the casino at Monte Carlo. 

 

I get my wallet out and start spraying cash around like it’s Monopoly money; drunk on plants, intoxicated by their colours, their lushness.  Their coquettish petals fluttering softly on the breeze; they’re so innocent and beguiling

 

 

 

“buy me,

buy me,

buy meeeee”

 

and I’m enslaved.    

 

 

 

 

 

Long forgotten is the £1.79 pack of garden twine that was the original purported intent of the  garden centre visit.  Then, before you know it I’m staggering and groaning towards the till, dragging along behind a trolley so laden that realistically it’d really need Pickfords to haul it all. 

 

Reorganise the car to accommodate yet another boot full of surplus to requirements climbers, shrubs, invasive perennials and trays of mischievously impish and entirely unnecessary though brightly hypnotic spangly annuals;

and so home to assiduously set about trying to realistically accommodate the consequences of another intensive plant binge spending spree. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is now a dichotomy of some magnitude because morally and ethically what I've done is wrong. 

Wrong on so many levels, as practically we have nowhere to home this new flock of tiny innocent lives.  Nowhere to offer them succour to develop and thrive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though at the time, back at the garden centre, working the impulses of an addict, spiritually it felt valid, it had a purity, because I loved them, each for their own individual qualities and demonstrably enacted that slavish devotion by the purchase of them and so, they are now dependant on me for their survival.

 

BUT ULTIMATELY THEY WILL PERISH. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stark reality is that the inhospitable conditions we battled in our former garden made it a foregone conclusion that we couldn’t dig anything more into the flint packed clay.  No more could be accommodated. 

 

 

 

Full up. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No room at the inn. 

 

 

 

 

 

No vacancies.

(In my head though)
 

I’m an artist in nature and I’m creating a wonder, a wonderful wonderland.  But the prosaic reality is more crude than that; an unpropitious suburban garden of limiting proportions. 

All we're really doing though is cramming it all in regardless of whether it can compete and exist in the gangland culture of the shrubbery where only the strong survive.  Not giving anything a chance to mature
 

   

Not giving anything a chance to flourish, achieve its full potential, to proudly flower its ultimate bright billowy proclamation.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only thing all this really achieves is to produce a gourmet a la carte banquet for all the snails who slide in peckish and roll out again gorged to capacity 

 

Our most commonly repeated mistake in all these years behind the trowel is this overly-ambitious, over planting, going for broke, cramming in too much with youthful exuberance and over optimism and inevitably losing so many delicate plants which are simply not well enough adapted to such conditions; unable to compete against stronger and more robust species which will always dominate.  To demonstrate that survival of the fittest is as appropriate in the flower bed as in any boardroom. 

 

This recurring theme is one error that we’re determined not to repeat here in our USG-Plot.

 

You may have noticed throughout earlier posts, exhilarant entreaties to thrift and economy whilst styling out your plant selections.  This is with good reason.  There’s no point splashing the cash beyond your boundaries.  You’ll end up over accumulating and eventually losing too many costly plants which will be disheartening.  

Other casualties of this cavalier overspend behaviour are the acquisition of too many cell packs of annuals.  For years we’ve had some surplus.  We think we’ll find a use for them but they hang about long after we’ve run out of compost, filled all the tubs and pots and gaps in the borders.  They start to look really tawdry and unkempt and spoil the effect of the rest of the garden, making the entire place look untidy as they grow more spindly, yellow and sickly.  A punishing reminder of the damage that over exuberance at the till can cause. 

 

So, less is more.  You can always top up later or patch gaps next season, but avoid rinsing some serious spondulicks across this summer.  Dial it down at the garden centre, that way you can trouser some change and your garden will look better for it.