{"id":2163,"date":"2006-09-14T15:44:41","date_gmt":"2006-09-14T20:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.1.5\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2017-07-18T12:08:44","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T17:08:44","slug":"5-worshipping-the-rainbow-goddess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/about-this-garden\/5-worshipping-the-rainbow-goddess\/","title":{"rendered":"5. Worshipping the Rainbow Goddess"},"content":{"rendered":"

AJM’s mother has a photo of ‘Champagne Elegance<\/a>‘–the first named iris I ever grew successfully–in her guest room so that I feel at home when we visit. Our older neighborhood is filled with heirloom irises that bloom every year any apparent effort on the part of most homeowners. I have a pale yellow<\/a> variety that blooms later than the white and purple flags–usually in mid-April around tax day. This iris is unkillable. I have seen small ones left in a pile (because I’ve never gotten around to replanting them) send down roots and plant themselves. They lead me down a pretty path thinking irises are a breeze to grow.<\/p>\n

And so they can be. Bearded irises are drought-tolerant, lime-tolerant plants. They need little attention except keeping the rhizomes free of weeds (and in my yard leaf litter). Let their rhizomes get covered and you’re asking for rot when Austin’s weather turns hot and humid. When it’s hot and dry their fans brown and they look messy. They have a fairly short bloom period and individual flowers last two days at most in our heat. In bloom they have no scent (connoisseurs will disagree) but when the blooms fade they give off a somewhat unpleasant scent of ammonia.<\/p>\n

Despite this I fell hard for irises. They come in every color except true red (which is why they are named after Iris, the goddess of the rainbow). They have more variety of blue flowers than any other species I can think of. I’m a sucker for blue flowers.<\/p>\n

In 1997 I sent off to White Flower Farms for three rhizomes of ‘Champagne Elegance’. I don’t remember the price but at the time it was the most I’d ever paid per single bulb. When they bloomed the following spring, the flowers looked like something from a catalog shoot–not something I’m used to seeing in my garden.<\/p>\n

I found Schreiner’s Iris Gardens<\/a> online and began a buying spree that lasted four years. I amazed a friend once when I showed her Schreiner’s glossy print catalog (the large one they send you if you’ve ordered from them before). She pointed out one she liked and I glanced over and said, “Oh, ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Yeah. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it.” She thought I had the name of every iris in the catalog memorized…I almost did.<\/p>\n

I fell in love with an iris called Seakist<\/a> which was selling for $35.00 a rhizome at the time. I bought other things while waiting for the price to come down and when it selling for $15.00, I bought three.<\/p>\n

Unlike my heirloom irises, my bought irises increased for a year or two and then waned. They want to be divided more frequently than I have time for and they demand the best spots in the garden then spend 50 weeks of the year not in bloom. The number of irises that I bought that never bloomed at all or only bloomed once, give me pause. I notice now that my extravagant iris buying stopped the same year I lost my job. If I were wealthy and if I had hired men to dig deep trenches for my picky plants, I’d keep trying iris after iris. As it is, I moved on to something that gave me a lot more flower for the same amount of money…roses.<\/p>\n

Question for central Texas gardeners: if you have bearded irises do you divide them after they bloom in the spring or do you wait until fall when they start growing again?
\n
\nIris Inventory<\/strong>
\n* Edith Wolford.
\nBought 3 at Barton Springs nursery ($2.99 each from Van Bloem Gardens). Never bloomed. Rotted.<\/p>\n

* Champage Elegance<\/a>.
\nBought 3 from White Flower Farms. Bloomed every year but is decreasing in size and vigor. One rhizome left.<\/p>\n

* Silverado.
\n1999. Bought 3 from Schreiner’s ($6.00 each). Bloomed 2001-2004. Divided 2003; 12 rhizomes. Did not bloom in 2005 or 2006.<\/p>\n

* Incantation.
\n1999. Bought 3 from Schreiner’s ($7.50 each). Bloom 2000-2002. Rotted in fall of 2002. Replanted 3 small rhizomes.<\/p>\n

* Lenten Prayer.
\n1999. Bonus iris from Schreiner’s. Never bloomed.<\/p>\n

* Alizes<\/a>.
\n2000. Bought 3 from Schreiner’s. Bloomed 2001, 2003, 2005. Died 2006.<\/p>\n

* Altruist<\/a>
\n2000. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s. Bloomed 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004. Rotted 2006 except for two small rhizomes I’m trying to save.<\/p>\n

* Mystic’s Muse<\/a>.
\n2000. Bonus iris from Schreiner’s. The first year it bloomed it won first place for pink irises at the local iris show. Bloomed 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005.<\/p>\n

* Seakist<\/a>.
\n2000. Bought from 3 from Schreiner’s ($15.00 each). Bloomed 2002, 2003. Increased vigorously and then died from rot during a rainy 2003.<\/p>\n

* Strictly Ballroom.
\n\"bearded
\n2000. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s. Bloomed 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. Had 8 at one time but now am down to one. One stalk opened 7 flowers over a 2-week period. Incredible!
\n2009-04-05. Blooms.<\/a><\/p>\n

* Salsa Rio.
\n2000. Bonus iris from Schreiner’s. Never bloomed.<\/p>\n

* Pallida Variegeta.
\n2001. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s ($12.50). Never bloomed. Trouble with rot. Moved it. Still died.<\/p>\n

Apollodorus.
\n2001. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s ($10.00). Never bloomed. Rotted 2001.<\/p>\n

Cloud Ballet<\/a>.
\n2001. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s ($12.50). Transplanted 5 to a sunnier location. Bloomed 2003, 2005, 2006. Formed vigorous clump. Tranplanted in 2006 but waited too long–all rhizome are very small and may take years to recover.<\/p>\n

Night Game<\/a>.
\n2001. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s ($15.00). Bloomed 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. Rotted 2006.<\/p>\n

* Jazzed Up.
\n2001. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s ($12.50). Never bloomed.<\/p>\n

* Night Ruler.
\n2001. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s ($10.00). Bloomed once in 2003. Transplanted but rotted in new location.<\/p>\n

* Raspberry Wine<\/a>.
\n2001. Bonus iris from Schreiner’s. Bloomed 2003, 2004. Transplanted 2 rhizomes in 2005. Transplanted 3 rhizomes in 2006.<\/p>\n

* Sneezy.
\n2001. Bought 1 from Schreiner’s. Bloomed once in 2002.<\/p>\n

* Thriller.
\n2001. Bought 2 from Schreiner’s. Never bloomed. Had 6 rhizomes in 2003 but all had disappeared by 2006.<\/p>\n

* Amethyst Flame.
\n2006. Passalong from Pam at Digging<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"bearded
2003-04-25. Pale lavender ‘Silverado’ and yellow heirloom irises edge the meadow of Love-in-a-mist and larkspur.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5370,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions\/5370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}