Claire Austin says grow bearded irises
If you want to make a statement in your garden, you can’t look past these big, blousy beauties
Tall bearded irises (flag irises) are still the most popular ones grown in gardens today. But not all gardeners appreciate these big, blousy and very colourful June-flowering beauties. For some, the flowers appear and disappear too briefly; for others, the tall flower stems are likely to topple over in high winds, while some gardeners just don’t like the big, frilly blooms. Luckily, due to the efforts of iris breeders around the world, there’s a wide selection of other bearded irises that have the colour and beauty of the taller plants bearded irises, but without their drawbacks.
Very free-draining
The shortest of the shorter irises are known as miniature dwarf bearded irises. These dinky plants grow no more than 20cm (8in) high. Sadly, I don’t find them easy to establish as they need to be grown in a rockery, or shallow clay pot, where the soil is very free-draining for much of the year.
The most suitable candidates for borders are the clumsily-named standard dwarf bearded irises, a name I shorten to SDB irises. When grown at the front of a border, or along a path, the not-over large, yet colourful, flowers will brighten the spring garden. Growing to only 30cm (12in) high, the soft green, sword-shaped leaves form a broad mound that’s covered with blooms from mid to late May. The tallest of the shorter irises are the intermediate and border bearded irises. The flowers of these vigorous-growing plants are quite large, but rarely are they brash. Reaching about 70cm (27½ in) high, they span the gap between SDB irises and tall bearded irises. Intermediate bearded irises (or IB irises for short) come into bloom just as SDB irises finish, around late May. Border bearded irises flower at the same time as tall bearded irises. Both types send up masses of strong flower stems that carry the blooms well above the leaves. This vigorous growth makes them thehe stars for mixing in n borders because theyhey can cope with competitionompetition from thehe surrounding plants, ants, something that hat traditional tallll bearded irises don’t always ways appreciate.
Delicate blooms
The last, but least known bearded irises are miniature tall bearded irises. In America, this group is also known as able irises, as they were used as cut f lowers. The delicate, little blooms are borne on a profusion of slender stems.
In the past, it wasn’t unusual for gardens to have a border that consisted of just one plant variety. These days one-species borders are unusual. This puts the large-flowered tall bearded irises at a disadvantage. They don’t produce as many leaves as shorter irises and so when grown in mixed borders, companions that grow over the allimportant rhizome can prevent them from forming flowers for the following year.
The dense leaf clumps formed by shorter bearded irises create a barrier that helps to stop other plants from crawling in between.
However, it’s still a good idea to select less vigorous, neater companions to accompany irises. Well-behaved, mounding plants such as coreopsis, dianthus, the shorter achilleas and hardy geraniums are perfect, as are lupins, salvias and veronicas.