Hardiness zones
Sunset All
USDA All
Landscape Use: Traditiona herbaceous perennial garden borders, floral color accent, fragrance gardens.
Form & Character: Upright and stout, colorful, informal, traditional.
Growth Habit: Herbaceous perennial to 18" to 4', clumping by horizontal branching rhizomes just beneath the soil surface.
Foliage/Texture: Alternate flat basal fans of 10 or more leaves, outermost leaves smallest, lanceolate to 18" long by 2" wide, glaucous blue; coarse texture.
Flowers & Fruits: Flowers, 4 to 8 per naked spike to 4' tall arising which arises from the terminal meristem generally the second year after transplanting. Colors white, blue, red to yellow, bicolors. Flowers 6 segmented, 3 upright and incurved (standards) and 3 reflexed (falls). The falls have a tuft of trichome at their base which is the "beard". Fruit are large green ovoid capsules.
Seasonal Color: Mostly spring flowering accent in the Phoenix area.
Temperature: Tolerant
Light: Partial to Full sun, but avoid Phoenix west exposures.
Soil: Tolerant of alkalinity and drought when not in bloom, prefers well drained.
Watering: Regular when actively growing during cool season, otherwise irregular in summer. In Mediterranean climates such as found in southern Califonia, iris require no supplemntal water.
Pruning: Remove spent flower stalks and old senescing foliage.
Propagation: Division of clumps every three years for multiplication of stock and retention of vigor.
Disease and pests: Whitefly, diabrotica on flowers, root rot in poorly drained soils.
Additional comments: Stately, popular, colorful herbaceous perennial with hundreds of cultivated varieties. Sizes range from miniatures (8-15" height) to tall bearded (4' height). Iris means rainbow.
