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 Late spring and early summer are dog days for the iris family: the time when they most yearn to flower. The bearded, the beardless and the bulbous all rush into song. Among them, there are those who do best when their rhizomes have been long kissed by the sun, and those who hide in boggy soil or who paddle their feet in water. Some slip into the shade.
In April and May, the crested Iris japonica, which likes a warm and sheltered spot, produces its extraordinary flowers around stiff bamboo-like stems two feet high. They are open flat flowers, iced lilac in colour with a lemon yellow flash to each fall. There is a charming variegated one with cream striped leaves, called , Variegata'. Another, 'Ledger's Variety', is virtually identical to the species but hardier.
 A shy gem of an iris at this late spring time is Iris graminea. Only a foot high, it hides the bushels of its charm within the tight green shafts of its leaves. They are a rich reddish purple with falls veined blue purple on white.
We move into early summer and the first of the bulbous iris to flower, the Xiphium family, especially the Dutch iris. Growing to two and a half feet, this variety is extremely variable and is apt to produce some happy surprises. Indeed, no two flowers are exactly alike. Blue, violet, a touch of carmine, splashes of yellow, cream and white are her palette. The Spanish iris flowers a fortnight or so later, and later still, in July, the English iris will perform.
 May and June herald the Iris sibirica with its dark blue veined flowers that resemble a dancing cloud of exotic butterflies. It is a moisture lover and has a tendency to be thuggish in its spreading habit. Also in early summer, the yellow tinged brownish intrigue of flowers of our native Iris foetidissima appear, impolitely called the stinking iris. In fact, it is not the flower that stinks but the glossy blade-like leaves which, when crushed, give off the whiff of meat, some say roast beef. It is an accommodating plant, thriving in poor soil and shady conditions, as well as in damp. Its seeds astonish through winter as the pods split open to reveal a smile of shiny bright orange fruits which, inexplicably, birds ignore. |
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