There are almost as many reasons to love bearded irises as there are colors of these basically bulletproof plants.
They’re drought-tolerant. They cope in Colorado’s heavy clay soils and seem to thrive on neglect. Even in shade or too-cool weather, they deliver a big, fragrant bloom show for a few weeks in spring and then back off to become a spiky backdrop to the rest of the garden border.
Third-generation Boulder flower farmer Catherine Long Gates has seen bearded irises push up through asphalt and thrive untended near abandoned homesteads and cemeteries.
“They persist,” she says. “There aren’t many flowers that are that showy that would be able to survive.”
Durable as they are, bearded irises are being constantly fiddled with by breeders, who cross this variety with that to expand the rainbow of blossoms, and to improve the drama and quality of petal forms.
They’re pushing for new colors — true red, green and black are the holy grail — and aiming for abundant blooms that last for days. Some are interested in foliage, hoping for a purple blush at the base, or working toward plants that have .
It can take a decade before a cross is proved to be worthy of commercial introduction, says Bob Van Liere, who breeds tall bearded irises — “the queen of the garden” — on his 3-acre in southwest Denver.
He made his first cross in 1998 and his first introduction in 2005.
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When that first cross reached bloom, he says, “I just stood there and watched them. I just sat with a cup of coffee and said, ‘Ahh.’ Today, I’m on it. You want to be ahead of what everyone else is doing. You’ve got to be bringing new colors into the market.”
This year, Van Liere is working through a field of 4,000 seedlings bred during the 2012 season. This is their third year in the garden, and he has selected the 200 best performers so far to be dug up and set out again. He’ll whittle the crop again next year and maybe end up with 10 to 20 varieties worthy of introduction.
The rest will hit the compost pile.
He’s looking for “a pretty face” — good, vibrant color combinations that are bright and showy, but don’t bleed together.
But good looks don’t matter if the blossoms aren’t prolific and lasting, Van Liere, 65, says. So he’s culling based on bud counts and flower forms. He wants standards (the three petals that form the flower’s cup) and the falls (the three that are its saucer) to be substantial enough to last three or four days in the heat. He’s looking for flounces on the falls, a little extra bling lifting from the furry beard.
He also wants the plants to produce a stem with at least four flowering points and a minimum of seven or eight flowers.
“A stem should last you two weeks,” he says.
A year like this one, with heavy moisture, should be good for breeders, because it encourages the true characteristics of the startup plants to show themselves. But the quenching storms also brought hail that seemed to have a bead on Van Liere’s farm.
“We were hit three times. It was really a frustrating bloom season,” he says. “There was a lot of crying that took place.”
But really, there is no time to mourn. He’s got to keep moving. “By the time seven to 10 years rolls around,” he said, “there is stuff on the market that may be better than what you brought.”
Van Liere has posted photos of his most promising crosses on the garden’s Facebook page, and he is quick to discuss their heritage. Some are the granddaughters of his early introductions.
Others are crossed with varieties developed by other breeders.
“There is an excitement, a rush and thrill when you walk out in your garden, and you see a new iris,” he says of his bold color combinations, like rimmed in gold. “There may be 50 brothers and sisters lined out from that cross, and maybe one is worth anything. But that one gives you enough pleasure to make it worthwhile.”
The proof of value, of course, is in how well the bold new varieties sell from farms such as Iris 4 U and .
“I think people are just looking for color,” Van Liere says. “The average person who comes to the garden, they don’t know modern from old-fashioned. They’re just amazed at all the new colors — as opposed to what your mom or her mom had growing in her garden.”
Gates says while she prefers the , which bloom early and tend to remain in disciplined little clumps of flowers under 15 inches tall, her customers are drawn to the big show stoppers , including Van Liere, have produced.
She may try to steer customers to varieties with extraordinary markings or unusual soft colors, but inevitably, the brightest hues sell out from her you-dig beds first. But that’s the fun of the rainbow of iris at her farm, she says.
And she’s undaunted by the gripes of some gardeners, that the iris blooming season doesn’t last long enough.
“We don’t need everything all year long,” Gates says. “If we did, it wouldn’t have the same specialness.”
Dana Coffield: 303-954-1954, dcoffield@denverpost.com or twitter.com/denpostdana
Giving bearded iris the best chance
Just because iris can grow on pavement or in tangled knots in the garden doesn’t mean they should. Growers Catherine Long Gates, of in Boulder, and Bob Van Liere, of in Denver, offered some tips for cultivating iris in your yard:
• Rhizomes, whether you order them from a farm or get them from a friend, can go into the ground almost anytime. They should be planted just beneath the soil. Van Liere likes to amend the soil with a triple super phospate fertilizer, adds a bit more in early March, as flower stalks begin to develop, and then again after the blooms are done. “If you never give your kid vitamins, or give them only one meal a day, they’re not going to be as tall and smart as they could have been.” Don’t add too much nitrogen, he says. “All you get is foliage.”
• Plants need a minimum of six hours of full sun daily. will last longer and be more vibrant if they get afternoon shade, Van Liere says.
• For best results, make sure your garden soil drains well, which means amending with compost. Iris don’t like to be drowned by the sprinkling system.
• Divide your iris and transplant every three to five years. This can occur any time during the season, Gates says, but waiting for a month after blooms are finished will allow new rhizomes and fans to develop and have a better chance of survival after dividing.
• Watch for diseases, infrequent though they may be. Heavy rains and high humidity this year led to an outbreak of leaf-spot fungus, which looks like rusty dots on the foliage. “It’s mostly cosmetic, but it can weaken the plant,” Gates says. If your garden fell victim, remove the spotty leaves and dispose of them in the trash or in commercial composting bins. If your garden is especially full, consider thinning plants and foliage to encourage air circulation around the iris.
