20 May 22, 2022The Sunday TimesHome
1418sun plants make an eye-
catching clump. Flowers mid-
season. Height 80cm.5
‘Party Dress’ (tall
bearded) Striking flowers
of a clear apricot-pink,
the beard providing a
contrasting slash of dark
orange. Intoxicating fruity
scent. Flowers mid-season.
Height 80cm.6
‘Alizes’ (tall bearded)
A gorgeous two-tone
flower with white standards
and ruffled falls that are
delicately veined in blue.
Deliciously scented. Bred at
the famous French iris
nursery, Cayeux. Mid-season.
Height 90cm.7
‘Flight of Butterflies’
(Siberian) Unusually
narrow leaves, which is
an advantage in mixed
plantings. Flowers are smaller
than those of some other
Siberian iris, but profusely
produced. Beautiful falls,
richly veined with blue on a
white background. Mid-
season. Height 85cm.1
‘Silver Edge’ (Siberian)
All the Siberian irises are
easy-going plants, and this is
a beauty with blue flowers
very finely edged with silvery
white. Flowers mid to late
season. Height 80cm.2
‘Black Gamecock’
(Louisiana) An excellent
poolside plant, thriving in
damp soil and flowering from
late May with lustrous, almost
black flowers. Happy in semi-
shade. Height 60cm.3
Iris orientalis (species)
Tall stems begin to show
before the winter ends and
make excellent punctuation
marks between dumpier
mounds of herbaceous plants.
The flowers are light-limbed
fleur-de-lys, white with
yellow throats, excellent
in a relaxed, slightly wild
planting. Height 90cm.4
‘Mer du Sud’ (tall
bearded) Striking clear
blue flowers, with no
contrasting colour, as even the
beards are that same
Mediterranean shade. In fullT
he bearded iris,
coming into bloom
now, is a powerful
flower and it
knows it. It looks
at you with a wonderful,
daring insolence, insultingly
superb. How can a flower be
so louche yet so distant,
all at the same time? Like all
irises, it is a model of
symmetry: three outside
petals called falls, three
upright petals called
standards and, right in the
centre, three strappy petals,
called style arms, protecting
the anthers. The “beards”,
after which they are named,
make hairy ridges down the
centre of the falls.
These are the showiest
of all the huge iris family, but
they are not the easiest to
place in a garden. They
need full sun for at least half
the day and they do not like
other plants flopping over
them. The rhizomes from
which they grow need to sit on
the surface of the soil and get
themselves as baked as
possible. The lighter the soil,
the easier you will find them.
The tall bearded irises
flower from mid-May until late
June. To get the longest
display, choose a selection
of varieties — early, mid and
late-season. A few, such as
pale blue ‘Best Bet’ and
coral-pink ‘Beverly Sills’, may
flower again in autumn. TheEye-catching and dramatic, the iris is the diva
of the garden. Anna Pavord has advice on how
to get the best out of these showiest of flowers
best time to buy is late
summer, when specialist
nurseries such as Woottens of
Wenhaston dig up the
rhizomes and send them out
bare-rooted.
The Siberian irises are
much easier to use in mixed
plantings as they grow like
other herbaceous plants,
producing tall, handsome
clumps of sword leaves,
useful even when the plant
is not in flower. They don’t
mind sharing space and
they are as good in semi-shade
as they are in sun. They mix
well with hostas, especially
grey-leaved ones such as
‘Krossa Regal’.
Another group of irises,
such as our native flag iris,
I. pseudacorus, do best in
damp soil. In the wild you
find it growing in bogs and
ditches or at the margins of
streams. In the garden it
makes a good poolside plant,
especially in its handsome
variegated form. The flag iris
has yellow flowers. I.
laevigata, which likes similar
conditions, produces
flowers of a beautiful blue.8
‘Butter and Sugar’
(Siberian) Well named,
with its crisp white
standards and soft yellow
falls. Usefully unfussy,
growing in shade or sun and in
soils that are heavy or light.
Mid-season. Height 70cm.9
‘Dusky Challenger’ (tall
bearded) Huge, ruffled
blooms, black and
smelling of chocolate. Strong,
well-branched stems. Mid to
late season. Unusually tall (up
to 95cm).10
Iris laevigata
‘Variegata’ (species
hybrid) Striking foliage
striped in soft cream and a
pale green, a variegation that
murmurs rather than shrieks.
Flowers of a strong lavender-
blue. In bloom early June.
Height 45cm.11
‘Holden Clough’ (species
hybrid) A quiet iris but an
intriguing one with lemony
petals deeply veined in a
purplish brown. Lovely to
pick, allowing you to admire
its intricacies. Happy in semi-
shade, where evergreen leaves
will quietly spread to make a
weed-suppressing mat.
Flowers mid to late May.12
Iris chrysographes
‘Black Knight’ (species
hybrid) A vigorous
selection with light-limbedPURPLE PROSE
110RICHARD BLOOM/MARCUS HARPUR/GAP PHOTOS; NICK KURZENKO/RON EVANS/GETTY IMAGES; ELLEN ROONEY/SHARON KOCH/P TOMLINS/HOLMES GARDEN
PHOTOS/ANDREW GREAVES/JOHN RICHMOND/TIM GAINEY/JOHN MARTIN/ALAMY