Using German Iris for Garden Effect — By b. j. Morrison, s 



SELECTING KINDS TO FIT THE SPECIAL SITUATION — HOW DISTANCE 

 MODIFIES OR CHANGES THE EFFECTS OF MINOR COLOR MARKINGS 



Tacoma Park, 

 C. 



EVEN to-day, when we hear frequently 

 of the beauty of the German iris, we 

 are likely to question the enthusiasm 

 of the speaker and coldly admit that 

 we have always loved the old blue fellow and 

 that we have always kept some in 

 our gardens. Some few of us may 

 add that we know Kochi and Mad. 

 Chereau, Florentine or pallida Dal- 

 matica, Queen of May or Maori 

 King or some such lot; but the 

 great majority of us do not know 

 the range of possibilities which the 

 German iris offers to the amateur 

 gardener. For German iris, with 

 their immediate allies, are "easy" 

 plants and are, therefore, plants 

 for everyone, because given a 

 fairly good soil, plenty of sun 

 shallow planting and a 

 thorough division when 

 crowding commences, 

 they will flourish as the 

 proverbial green bay 

 tree. 



This very vigor and 

 ease of growth brings about a great multi- 

 plication of roots, which in turn assures a 

 wonderful sheet of color in the spring, be it 

 late May or early June. Many of us, of 

 course, with tiny gardens and a 

 passionate love for varieties 

 of flowers, do not allow our- 

 selves the luxury of great 

 masses of many plants. Ger- 

 man iris should be one of the 

 favored exceptions, because 

 of the marvelous garden effect 

 of the mass of delicate flowers, 

 either in the full sun of midday 

 or in the softer light of dawn 

 or evening. 



In studying the German 

 iris for garden effect, one. 

 should choose varieties with 

 color that will carry well. 

 Moreover, if the picture is to 

 be seen from any distance the 

 color should be studied, if 

 possible, from that distance be- 

 cause many iris colors change 

 quite as much with distance as 

 flower colors do with quality of 

 light. For example, there is an 

 exquisite iris, Mrs. G.Reuthe, of a 

 delicate pearl gray color, with a 

 wonderful feeling of blue through it, 

 which near by in the garden is more 

 than charming. Across the garden, 

 this becomes a dirty gray, especially 

 in strong light, and from the garden 

 entrance the color is quite lost. The 

 popular variety, Queen of May, is 

 another example of change of color 

 effect. This is one of the so-called pink 

 irises. The underlying color is un- 

 doubtedly a lovely shade of old rose, 

 but the falls are veined and the claws 

 and style-arms are suffused witb yellow 



in such a way, that in the diffused lights of morning 

 and evening, the rose color is peculiarly browned. In 

 strong sunlight, the color carries well in the 

 garden but is not quite so good from the dis- 

 tance. Again, the great group to which Mad. 

 Chereau belongs is not a group for distance 

 effects because the frill of color on the white 

 ground is practically lost in the distance and 

 the flowers serve merely as tiny white ones. 

 Similarly there are many varieties in the 

 Neglecta group which have an undertone of 

 warm bronze in the blue, which serves to dull the 

 blue from a distance. In the Squalens group also, 

 the brown color, which has become more ruddy or 

 more coppery in color, still serves to dull the 

 ground colors, which here are yellows and 

 crimsons. And so one might multiply 

 examples, but the question of 

 personal taste plays so great a 

 part in deciding what changes 

 are pleasant and what are not 

 that further examples would be 

 quite useless. 

 Aside from the matter of pure 

 color, the texture of the 

 petal tissue plays an im- 

 portant part in the iris 

 effect in the gar- 

 d e n . Roughly 

 speaking, from 

 this point of 

 view, iris may be 

 classified into 

 two groups; those 

 in which both 

 standards and 

 falls are of the same 

 texture and those in 

 which the textures are 

 different in the dif- 

 ferent sets of peri- 

 k anth segments. 



The first 

 group is 

 well illus- 

 trated b y 

 such species 

 flavescens, 

 pallida Dalma- 

 tica, florentina, 

 Kochi and soon. 

 In these, the tissue is of a very trans- 

 parent quality which becomes almost 

 luminous in certain lights but which is 

 veiled to some extent by pigment in 

 some of the forms. This is especially 

 noticeable in dark colored selfs such as 

 Kochi and spectabilis. Then, too, 

 there is a sub-class of this group in 

 which all the slightly veined selfs come, 

 such as Mad. Chereau, Bridesmaid, 

 Cypriana, Mrs. H. Darwin and many 

 others. These all lose just a little in 

 transparency but are of the same gen- 

 eral character. 



The other great class is well illus- 

 trated by the common German iris 

 with its violet blue standards and more 

 or less velvety purple falls. An ex- 



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