Picture perfect
Monet was a fan and irises add vibrancy to a garden’s colour palette
WITH the recent glorious sunshine, it feels as if summer has arrived. In the garden we can enjoy roses, peonies, wisteria, poppies and much more as they start to blossom.
One of the stars of the June garden for me is the bearded iris. Named after the Greek goddess of rainbows and messenger of the Olympian gods, this is a spectacular plant which combines beautiful flowers, architectural foliage and a sweet fragrance.
There are hundreds of different cultivars with colours ranging through the rainbow and beyond to include bronze, brown, black and the purest of whites. Some are bicoloured, for example ‘Supreme Sultan’ which has wonderfully contrasting yellow standards (the upright petals) and deep burgundy falls.
Others have richly contrasting beards – the furry little line of hairs on the falling petal which act as a landing strip for bees to guide them into the centre of the flower. They are memorably captured by the French impressionist painter Claude Monet at his garden in Giverny, France, where great blocks of iridescent blue irises shimmer in the golden sunlight.
They are thought to originate in Mediterranean Europe and this gives us the key to understanding what conditions they like.
While some other types of iris, for example the yellow flag, enjoy moist, boggy conditions, the bearded iris likes its life hot, dry and sunny – planted in an open position where the rhizomes can bake all summer long.
The rhizomes should be purchased and planted in late summer and autumn – they don’t like any disturbance at all in spring.
Plant shallowly in well drained soil with the tops of the rhizomes exposed – if you plant too deep they won’t flower and the rhizomes may rot.
After a few years they can become congested so you can lift in late summer and autumn then remove the older parts of the rhizome, replanting the new bits.
Other than this, they are remarkably low maintenance and robust plants.
The taller varieties sometimes require staking when they become top heavy with flowers.
They look great planted en bloc and when mixed with other plants, but make sure their neighbours don’t shade or crowd them out.
Light frothy umbellifers such as Anthriscus ‘Ravenswing’ or foliage-light alliums make good partners.
The strong sword-like foliage and lush extravagant flowers allow them to blend seamlessly into a romantic cottage garden scheme, a formal elegant design or a bold contemporary look. Cut the flower stems down after they have finished flowering so the plant can divert its energy to increasing rhizomes.
By winter, all the foliage will die down completely until the following spring.
Some varieties are re-bloomers which means you’ll get a second flowering in autumn, a poignant reminder of what has been. Examples include the rich violethued ‘Cantina’, the lovely lemony ‘Buckwheat’, the soft blue ‘ Victoria Falls’ and the gorgeous white ‘Immortality’.