Reticulate Iris 2010

[Gail]

Thanks Luc - yours looks a different shape to mine too.

[udo]

This is the plant I bought as Iris histrioides var. major.  I thought histrioides was meant to leaf after flowering and this looks to me more like one of the Harmony/Joyce type cultivars.  Looking at Dominique's picture from last year http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=1194.msg34325#msg34325 his looks a shorter plant and petal's more widely spaced.  (Mine is currently 11.5cm tall, flowers around 4.5cm across) Any comments welcome...

Gail, your Iris is possibly not 'Major', the leave comes by this form with or after
the flower.
See this picture:

[Gail]

Thank you Dirk, I agree.  Mine will be demoted to 'Iris misnamed'.

[Gail]

Next question - Iris danfordiae was first collected by Helen Danford in 1876 on the north side of Mt Anascha.

When I google Anascha I just get lots of references to marijuana (?!).  Does anyone know the current name for the mountain, and if the iris still grows there?

[ashley]

Mine will be demoted to 'Iris misnamed'.

Oh I grow that one too, in so many forms

[Janis Ruksans]

Next question - Iris danfordiae was first collected by Helen Danford in 1876 on the north side of Mt Anascha.

When I google Anascha I just get lots of references to marijuana (?!).  Does anyone know the current name for the mountain, and if the iris still grows there?

A lot of names in Turkey are changed, some even many times.
Janis

[Pascal B]

Next question - Iris danfordiae was first collected by Helen Danford in 1876 on the north side of Mt Anascha.

When I google Anascha I just get lots of references to marijuana (?!).  Does anyone know the current name for the mountain, and if the iris still grows there?

Couldn't it be Anasha instead of Anascha? There is a village in Turkey named Anasha which lies in the Taurus Mountains in Southern Turkey. Mountains near a village often are named after that nearby village so the mountain would be Anasha Dagh. Whether the plant still occurs there I don't know.

[Gail]

Thank you for that.  I got the spelling Anascha from Dykes' The Genus Iris but spellings of place names are notoriously variable.  It was said to be in the Cilician Taurus.

I was looking yesterday at the I. danfordiae that my local garden centre were selling potted up (one of a big chain more interested in 'gifts' than plants).  They were all labelled correctly, unlike the next tray where 3 different reticulata cultivars were all claiming to be 'Purple Gem', but many of the bulbs were badly affected with botrytis and/or blue moulds and had yellow streaky leaves which I assume indicates virus infection.

I was intrigued to see that their irises bore stickers proudly proclaiming "Grown in Britain", as I'm sure that they were actually grown in The Netherlands, imported in the autumn and then consigned to small pots of claggy peat-based compost and overwatered in Britain.  I suspect "Grown in the Netherlands; Killed in Britain" would have been more honest!

[Darren]

I've been lurking on this thread and watching with a great deal of envy. I really struggle to grow the reticulata Irises 

Even more embarrassingly we have pretty much perfect garden soil and aspect for most bulbs but the reticulatas just disapppear after a year or two. I kept winogradowii going in pots for a while, and still have some McMurtrie seedlings alive but not flowering. Ironically I can keep and flower Hermodactylus in pots indefinitely whereas most growers seem to find them harder in pots.

One day i will find the space and the time to try and solve this but meanwhile please keep taunting me with your lovely pictures everyone

[Luc Gilgemyn]

No need to be embarrassed Darren - you're not alone struggling to grow them well in the garden... 

[Calvin Becker]

I wish we could just get them here in SA, let alone struggle to grow them!

[mark smyth]

Calvin is it not possible to grow them?

[David Nicholson]

No need to be embarrassed Darren - you're not alone struggling to grow them well in the garden... 

... and I struggle with them in the garden too Darren.

[art600]

Not sure why I am able to grow them well in the garden - my soil is acid.  All the clumps are increasing, with the exception of danfordiae.

[krisderaeymaeker]

Today first flower open on my 'Katharine Hodgkin'
This photo was taken prevoius year (02/03/09)