A couple of years ago a customer from Colorado Springs, an iris collector, was here to see it bloom and she said, no, that’s not Wabash. It’s cool, and similar, but I have Wabash and this isn’t that. We traded roots, I gave her some of this one and she sent me a division of Wabash. Here is the Wabash she sent me, blooming now. It’s a very elegant iris from the 1930’s, and worth growing!

It’s so easy to loose track of iris names, especially if you have a lot of them growing together. They can spread pretty quickly, and after they’re done blooming who can tell? You can write the name on a leaf of the plant with a black marker, while it’s blooming, and then when it’s time to divide you should be able to keep track.

Iris need to be divided every three years, or they crowd themselves out and stop blooming as well. Chances are, if this is the best year you’ve had with your iris, it’s time to divide. Why wait until they’re so crowded you don’t have any flowers?

When to divide bearded iris? I’ve had good luck with them almost any month in the summer, but traditional wisdom says to wait until July. That gives the iris time to regrow roots before winter, and if you don’t make your divisions too small, they can bloom next spring.  When we divide ours this summer, I’ll post step by step pictures of the process. It’s easy, fear not!

Not too far from the iris, a house wren is building its home. Wrens are friendly little birds and their song is sweet. They don’t seem to fear humans, and they dart around our customers all day long.

And a couple more iris.  This is Loreley, an heirloom from 1909. It’s over a hundred years old and still a favorite.

The next one is a modern hybrid, I’m not sure of the name. The Iris plant is named after Iris, goddess of the rainbow, so we should grow every color, shouldn’t we? I still need a good orange and I’m checking the specialty iris growers for that this year.