Migrating Iris

Weather: We got rain a couple times this week.  It always happened after dark, so I couldn’t see if there were problems with runoff from the stripped hill above my house.  The only known problem, so far, has been bits of cut Russian thistles that have landed in my yard when the winds have blown.

Last useful rain: 9/22.  Week’s low: 42 degrees F.  Week’s high: 87 degrees F in the shade.  Winds got up to 29 mph in Los Alamos on last Sunday.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid roses, buddleia, silver lace vine, morning glories, Russian sage, roses of Sharon, hollyhocks, red amaranth, Maximilian sunflowers, cushion chrysanthemums, black-eyed Susans, yellow cosmos, marigolds

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Apache plume, datura, scarlet creeper, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, leather leaf globe mallow, Queen Anne’s lace, goats’ heads, green amaranth, white pigweed, lambs’ quarters, snakeweed broom, native sunflowers, ánil del muerto, broom senecio, Hopi tea, tahoka daisies, horseweed, dandelion; heath, purple, and golden hairy asters

What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature roses, cliff rose, yellow potentillas, sweet peas, large flowered soapwort, winecup mallows, perennial four o’clock, pink evening primroses, chocolate flowers, Mexican hats, blanket flowers, lance leaf and plains coreopsis, anthemis

What bedding plants are blooming: Snapdragons

What’s blooming from this year’s seed: Cantaloupe, scarlet flax, bachelor buttons, zinnias, Sensation cosmos

Animal sightings: Small geckoes; monarch, cabbage, and sulphur butterflies; small and bumble bees, few hornets, crickets, few grasshoppers, sidewalk and harvester ants

Wednesday I was using the string trimmer along the fence that edges the drive to the road.  I picked up a trash bin cover that had been on the ground for a few weeks and a colony of black insects ran away.  Then, a fist-sized brown toad emerged, but did not immediately disappear.

Tasks: Most people who keep their yards and shoulders clear have cut down the pigweed that sprouted after the rains.  I do still hear string trimmers sometimes when I’m out working.  Their noise carries a long distance, especially in the mornings when there is little traffic.

Weekly update: So far, I haven’t had much luck with bearded iris, even though they grow in this area.  They even survive in neglected areas of the local cemeteries.

I ordered bulbs in 1996 from one of the mass market bulb catalogs.  The two varieties bloomed a little each year.  The next year I bought 6 bulbs from the local hardware; these came with a name that doesn’t seem to exist, but they bloomed better than the others.  I could tell them apart because the combinations of yellow or white tops and falls were unique to each.

A few years passed and I ordered some more from the first company.  Again they bloomed, but not prolifically.  I decided to buy from a more expensive grower that specialized in iris, but again without much luck.  Next, I tried some reblooming iris from a mass market nursery that did not specialize in bulbs in 2013.  They bloomed for a few years, then stopped, and never bloomed a second time.

I was planting them along a slope that descended from the driveway to the main flower bed.  I decided the problem was that I had planted a 30' row of potentillas along the same slope in 2013, and they soon overshadowed the iris.  I assumed they simply died out from the competition.

Last summer I started trimming dead wood from under the shrubs and found iris leaves deep in the shade.  I moved about 40 to the main bed in September.  All they’ve done so far is produce bigger leaves.

This past week I moved another 75 from under the potentillas.  That’s a rough total of 115 plants from the 33 I originally purchased.

Many remained deep in shade, but the ones that were closer to the bottom of slope had begun migrating.  There’s a course of bricks at the base of the slope that creates a low barrier above the paved ditch.  Many were displacing the bricks.

When I removed the bricks to get to the rhizomes, I discovered the leaves arose above one end with radiating white roots.  Behind this active head were long, brown, cigar-shaped roots that reached back to the original locations.  They apparently had been slowly extending themselves until they reached water.  The potentillas kept pace so they never found sunlight.

I had given up on those iris, and in 2019 began buying some iris from another iris grower, which I put in the main bed.  They always bloom well the first year, because they formed their blooming stems while they were in the optimal conditions.  They’ve bloomed less since, but then we’ve had some dry summers and tough winters.

Last year I was careful to transplant the older varieties into a different area.  This year I had so many, I put them wherever I could find a space.  If they ever bloom, I still may be able to tell them apart by the differences in fall and upright colors.

Notes on photographs:
1.  Goldfinger yellow potentilla (Potentilla fruticosa) near retaining wall this summer, 1 July 2022.  The iris not visible.

2. Strike It Rich bearded iris (Iris germanica) near retaining wall, 17 May 2012.  These were the ones from the first specialty iris grower.  Most of the surrounding green is golden spur columbine (
Aquilegia chrysantha).

3.  Strike It Rich bearded iris with young Goldfinger potentillas, 25 May 2015.  The other yellow flowers are the columbine.

4.  Banana Split bearded iris that has displaced bricks near the paver-lined ditch, 15 March 2014.  This is the variety I bought in the local store.