dwarf iris

In the past couple of days the first of the dwarf iris in the middle of the front garden have started to open, which has concentrated my mind on weeding the gravel around them.  They will show to their best advantage standing like little jewels among the stone chippings, not as they were this morning emerging from a mat of low growing weedy vegetation.  First to open in quantity is a relatively large dark purple flowered variety with yellow splashes, and there are plenty of less advanced clumps to come.  I see from my records that I've planted 'Cantab', 'George', 'Harmony', 'J S Dijt' and 'Katherine Hodgkin' at various times, but apart from 'Katherine Hodgkin' I've lost track of which is which, having not gone for the pets' graveyard approach of labelling each individual clump.  'Katherine Hodgkin' is an unusual mixture of blue and yellow, strange and lovely.  I think the large and early one is 'George', and 'Cantab' will presumably be light blue.  They are all very pretty, purple or blue iris flowers standing above strappy foliage, which lengthens as the flowers fade to 20-30cm tall, but quickly dies down.

These are hybrid forms of Reticulata iris.  They have a reputation for not being reliable repeat flowerers, partly because the bulbs can break up after their first flowering into many small bulbs that take years to grow back to flowering size.  I called the other day at the house of a very knowledgable and experienced gardener who had one early 'Katherine Hodgkin' out by her front door, and as I admired it she observed that they tended not to last with her.  I said that they were fairly perennial with me on very light, poor soil and she replied (with a hint of asperity) that her soil was pretty well drained.  I don't claim any credit for ours, but the conditions do seem to suit them.  I start them in 1L pots so that I can plant them out in the spring when I can see what other bulbs are there, so they grow in an island of multipurpose compost plunged into extremely light acid soil.  They are mulched with gravel, and receive no kind of top dressing of organic material because of the gravel.  They get sun for most of the day and are exposed to the south westerlies.  Annual rainfall is around 21 inches or 525mm.  Some say that if you plant the bulbs deeply they are less likely to split.  Mine get potted with 2-3 inches or 5-8cm compost above them, which is dictated by the dimensions of the pots, and I plant them out to the same depth.  And that's it.  They seem to last for several years, and I periodically top them up.

As well as the dwarf iris there are Scilla siberica, Chionodoxa and miniature tulips.  One of these has been seeding itself and I kept finding tiny bulbs amont the weeds, which I buried again.  This area of the garden hosts an annoying fine leaved annual grass which is entirely absent from the heavier soil further down the slope.  I did find a seedling Genista aetnensis, which I ought to pot up quickly while it is small as I rather think they dislike transplanting.  The gravel needs topping up, but with any luck there'll be enough in the thick bits round the edge of the drive for me to take it from there.  I'm going to have to order another load one of these days, but I'd rather not at the moment, as there are enough jobs to do already without saddling myself with a large pile of gravel in the front garden urgently needing to be spread out.