Dutch irises provide inexpensive, rich color from late-tulip time until the end of June.
They’ve long since proved their dependable hardiness, and even Northern gardeners can forget that the word lender” once applied to Dutch irises.
Iris will grow in any reasonably good garden soil that’s well-drained and sunny, and they’re a rewarding source of cut flowers—long-lasting and dependable when cut in the bud.
Deep, decorative colors, large, sturdy blooms, and strong stems make today’s Dutch iris blooms perfect.
The answer to almost any- to-plant-for-early-June problem and planning bed and border groupings, shrub accents, and rock garden eye-catchers can be an exciting, easy-on-the-budget project.
There are choice, harmonious colors that accent, blend, or contrast, including all-whites, white and yellow, deep golds, orange-yellows, lilacs, and pale blues.
When To Plant Dutch Irises
Late fall planting is recommended for Dutch iris bulbs.
This discourages ample top growth, some of which they will usually insist on making anyway—plant 3” inches to 4” inches deep—5” inches to 6” inches apart for depth and spacing.
Dutch iris foliage is comparatively scanty, so planning their positions to benefit from other vegetation adds to their effectiveness.
Outstanding Dutch Iris Varieties
Outstanding among the many goods, named varieties of irises and currently listed in various dealers’ catalogs are such worthwhile beauties as the magnificent milky white ‘Joan of Arc’ and the bold, rich mauve ‘Mauve Queen’ and ‘King Mauve,’ their pearly violet falls splashed with yellow.
‘Gold and Silver is an enormous and enchanting silvery white with deep gold falls.
‘Blue Pearl’ is a rich navy blue with a dewy sheen; ‘Blue Imperator’ is one of the largest and loveliest of the deep blues.
Two other paler blue colossal are ‘Blue Champion’ and ‘Blue Triumphator.”Bronze Beauty is a charming combination of blue and bronze.
The gay ‘Lemon Queen’ and the vigorous deep gold ‘Princess Beatrix’ have many attributes.
‘Orange King’ is exciting, and I like the soft lilac and white of ‘Lady Derby.’
Princess Irene’ is white and deep orange. ‘Wedgewood’ is the beautiful hybrid so familiar as a florist flower. Its pale blue falls are. They are dotted with yellow.
‘Wedgewood’ is also one of the earliest Dutch irises to bloom.
Lustrous tones of deep blue and bronze make the new ‘Prof. Blaauw is an excellent addition to the available wealth of Dutch irises.
The collections and mixes offered variously will furnish handsome groupings of transitional color when no particular scheme is being carried out.
When Dutch irises are to be utilized for cuttings to any great extent, the foliage is impaired, and the length of flowering will be scanty the following season.
Still, with their nominal cost, planned replacements each fall are hardly an extravagance.
Winter Protection In Frigid Climates
Left undisturbed, Dutch irises will multiply, and the same winter protection given other bulbs will suffice for them in severe localities.
Their foliage, as with other bulbs, needs to ripen. Thoroughly before it is removed.
If “Dutch plant irises” is on your things-to-do-this-fall memo, you’re planning an exciting extension of bulb color that would be difficult to manage so rewardingly and inexpensively any other way.
44659 by Marguerite Kunkel