Re: Re:Growing Iris South Florida
iris@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Re:Growing Iris South Florida
  • From: &* P* &* <1*@rewrite.hort.net>
  • Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2014 16:00:00 -0500 (EST)
While it is probably true that most bearded irises have trouble in zone 9, I can assure you they can grow in zone 8. But there are possibilities that to my knowledge have never been explored. 

First Herbarium sheets from the USA Herbariums show collections of Iris germanica in every county of Florida. How can that be? Possibly these were all misidentified but that seems unlikely. More to the point perhaps is that early hybridizers had problems with many early tall-bearded irises because the cultivars were not hardy to withstand Northern winters. Because there were few (if any) hybridizers in the Deep South cultivars were selected in favor of those that could tolerate Northern winters. It is possible that some historics would grow in the Deep South, but remember it is unlikely those persisted in Northern gardens. 

The classic bearded iris of the South is now Iris albicans (a natural sterile hybrid). I do not know how far South its range extends. Also the famous Iris trojana (a natural tetraploid TB species) seems to have relatively disappeared. It would have been a good candidate. There are bearded species that occur in southern Italy some in the mountains but Iris bicapitata occurs even at sea level. It is likely that at race of TBs for the South could be bred but obtaining the material to work with may be difficult.

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