Re: CULT:Spurias for the south
Hi Bill,
I have a question. My mother has a tall beardless iris that is white and yellow. It is as tough as nails, must have full sun, and can be 4 to 4 1/2 feet tall when happy. It blooms well after TB's. And I think mom brought it down from Chicago about 40 years ago. She calls it a Dutch Iris. I have not seen another iris quite like it. Mostly due to its plant size. What is it? It tolerates baked clay and neglect extremely well. But gets taller with water.
Wendy Zone 5 with everything covered in rock hard ice.
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Shear
To: iris-talk@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 6:46 AM
Subject: [iris-talk] CULT:Spurias for the south
In response to Walter's question, with the caution that MS is not VA--
Successful spurias here in central VA:
ROYAL CADET
ILA REMEMBERED
EVENING DRESS
ORO DE SONORA
SULTAN'S SASH
COUNTESS ZEPPELIN
WHITE OLINDA
UNIVERSAL PEACE
and others not yet fully evaluated.
My spurias came from Chehalem Gardens (Tom and Ellen Abrego) and have
increased to large clumps. Tom and Ellen provide really fine rhizomes to
start with. I grow them in a heavy clay soil that was amended with lots of
organic matter--well-composed stump grindings from a local tree service.
Actually, I just laid about 6" of stump grindings on the surface of the
clay and planted the spurias in that. Each spring they get a few inches of
leafmold as a top dressing, otherwise no other attention. The exposure is
a little less than ideal--they get sun for only about 4-6 hours a day,
partly shaded by a couple of Japanese pear trees and a redbud. Foliage
lingers all summer, though by fall is kind of ratty. There is some foliage
replacement in fall, but the main growth occurs very rapidly in the spring,
before blooming. I have a large collection of older spurias growing out at
school, which I got from Charlie Brown in Texas. These have not done so
well, but got off to a bad start. I didn't receive them until midwinter
and potted them up in the greenhouse until planting them out in the
spring--I think this threw them off and they have not yet recovered. The
soil where this latter collection is planted is much more loamy (less clay)
and was amended by working in an existing mulch of wood chips (much
rotted). TBs intermingled at this site thrive. Full sun and perhaps
rather drier conditions here.
In general spurias seem to resent transplantation--the polar opposite of
the TBs, which seem to like almost annual replanting. However, the payoff
is that once they are established, you don't have to do anything but
provide a few shovels of compost or some similar organic topdressing
annually for the next 15 years, while the clumps get bigger and bigger. I
have one clump of a seedling from SIGNA seed that is now 13 years old,
nearly 4 ft in diameter, and annually produces 15-20 bloomstalks. An old
clump of what looks like I. ochroleuca or something similar has been
growing in an abandoned garden near my parent's old home in Pennsylvania
for at least 50 years, without the least attention.
The role of water in spuria growth is not clear. Iris spuria, the basic
species (and several more were involved in today's hybrids) from Europe and
western Asia, is a plant of wet ground, often even saline marshes. Other
species like I.ochroleuca and I. monneiri seem to be from, or prefer
(monnieri has never been found in the wild) dry grassland scrub, and some
of the west Asian and Turkish species inhabit places that are dry as dust
all summer, with moisture only available from melting snows. Others are
evidently alpine meadow plants.
Obviously, hybrids with I. spuria genes predominating will handle summer
moisture and damp soil the best, while those derived predominantly from the
desert and grassland species will tend to be summer-deciduous. I don't
know enough about spuria ancestries to be able to say if this is really
true.
Thirty years ago, I would have said that spurias were second only to
bearded irises in garden potential and popularity. They seem to have been
eclipsed by both Louisianas and Siberians and today we read surprisingly
little about them.
Why? They're great!
How about a "spuria issue" of the AIS Bulletin?
Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<wshear@email.hsc.edu>
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