More About Border Irises, the Bulbous Kinds— By 



FOLLOWING UP THE ARTICLE ON THE BORDER IRISES FOR EVERYBODY'S GARDEN LAST 

 MONTH, THE YELLOW FLOWERED KINDS AND THE BULBOUS TYPES ARE NOW DISCUSSED 



Mrs. W. R. 

 Wilder 



THE three yellow flowered irises 

 suitable for either the open bor- 

 der or the waterside are of 

 the beardless section. The first 

 I. aurea, bears a pure yellow flower with 

 slightly crimped petals on long stems held 

 well above the foliage. I. Monnieri is 

 lemon yellow and sends its flowers aloft on 

 stems four feet tall. I. ochroleuca, the 

 goldbanded iris, known also as orientalis, 

 rises in its variety gigantea, if well suited 

 in soil and situation, to a height of six feet. 

 With care, under ordinary garden con- 

 ditions, it seldom attains a greater emi- 

 nence than 4^ feet, but its thick creamy 

 blossoms, deepening to pure gold at the 

 base of the petal, are extremely beautiful. 

 These three yellow irises, with the addition 

 of Snow Queen, are used here to encircle a 

 little garden pool. Our pretty native, 

 I. versicolor, which makes gay the low 

 meadows in June, and the yellow water 

 flag, I. pseudacorus, are a bit too free with 

 their progeny, to make garden habitation 

 quite the thing for them. Far and wide the 

 quickly germinating seeds are scattered and 

 before one knows it, stout clumps are crowd- 

 ing out the choicer, less pervasive things. 



THE BULBOUS (xiPHION) IRISES 



With this class of iris, I have had no great 

 experience, though the few that are known 



The English iris has larger flowers than the Spanish 

 and is a bigger plant. It must have moisture 



to me, have made me most anxious to make 

 the acquaintance of others. Nothing could 

 be more lovely than those belonging to the 

 "reticulata" group. I have grown only 

 three of these irises, including the type, but 

 Professor Bailey gives quite a number as 

 hardy in the vicinity of New York City. 

 The reticulata irises, have curiously "net- 

 ted" bulbs, hence the name, and the type 

 and its variety Krelagei, are characterized 

 by peculiar four sided leaves with a horny 

 tip. The type is the most beautiful of 

 all. I never cease to be quite overwhelmed 

 at the appearance of these brilliant purple 

 and gold flowers, showing through a mist 

 of narrow gray foliage. Last spring they 

 flashed forth while the snow still lay thick 

 upon the ground and in spite of the cold, 

 their delicious violet fragrance was discern- 

 ible many feet away. Krelagei bears a 

 duller flower and neither this nor the variety 

 histrioides has, save in a slight degree, the 

 violet perfume. The variety histrioides 

 blooms a little before the others and bears 

 larger flowers which often expand before 

 the leaves are well out of the ground. If 

 taken into a warm room, both this and 

 Krelagei will give out more perfume, but 

 the type seems quite undaunted in its 

 determination to make sweet the cold 

 March garden. All the reticulatas are 

 prone to a deadly disease which shows on 

 the netted surface of the bulb in ink-like 

 blotches and soon causes the plant to die. 

 Professor Michael Foster recommended 

 lifting and replanting the bulbs every 

 spring, after the foliage has died down, 

 discarding those which show the blight. 

 Another authority advocates soaking for 

 an hour or so in a solution of formaline of 

 the strength of one in three hundred parts. 



My reticulatas have done fairly well in a 

 raised border against the wall facing south 

 where they are kept dry in winter. The 

 soil is a mixture of sand and rather heavy 

 loam, but I believe that an admixture of 

 clay is more desirable. 



The so-called Spanish and English irises 

 are quite indispensable if we have a spot to 

 suit them. The former is rightly called 

 I. Xiphium, and comes from Spain and 

 Portugal. The stem rises stiffly to a 

 height of about 15 inches, and carries two 

 flowers, almost conventional in their chaste 

 formality of outline. They are so inex- 

 pensive that the bulbs may be set out by the 

 thousand and I know of no investment 

 which will bring greater return in beauty 

 for the outlay. They are best planted in 

 August, that they may send up their narrow 

 onion-like growth, which seems to be a 

 guarantee of good faith, before frost. 



Any dry sunny border suits them well, 



but they do not like to be crowded by strong 



growing perennials or robbed by greedy 



annuals, but after the foliage is gone, they 



345 



The Spanish iris grows almost anywhere and has 

 a great range of color. Best planted in August. 

 Most valuable for cut flower 



do not object to such lightly rooting annuals 

 sown above their heads, as Campanula 

 Attica, Sedum cceruleutn, Ionopsidium 

 acaule, and Gamolepis annua. When the 

 bulbs become overcrowded, it is well to 

 lift and replant them comfortably. These 

 flowers have been called the "poor man's 

 orchid," but rich and poor, and all the 

 middle sized folk between, will make no mis- 

 take in generously planting Spanish irises. 

 These are among the few plants which 

 may safely be bought "mixed;" inharmony 

 seems impossible. 



The English iris, I. xiphioides, is, in spite 

 of its common name, native to the Pyrenees. 

 It makes no autumn growth and the foliage 

 is taller and broader than that of the Span- 

 ish iris, while the blossoms which are larger, 

 appear only in soft porcelain blues, reddish 

 purple and white and are more loosely 

 and gracefully made. This type requires 

 more moisture than is usually to be had in 

 our dry American gardens and in my own 

 garden, even with faithful watering, it has 

 not been happy. 



