Irises a beautiful sign of spring in Central Texas
By Dan Cathey Special to the Tribune-Herald
The Waco Iris Society Spring Show is from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Clarion Hotel, 801 S. Fourth St. Many irises will be on display and members of the society will be available to offer guidance and answer questions. Potted irises will be sold. Admission is free.
The iris is one of the plants most associated with spring flowering in this part of Texas. Starting in mid-March, noticing them is almost unavoidable — in cottage gardens, estate gardens, cemeteries, along old fence lines and in long-abandoned home sites.
The reason is simple. Irises are among the easiest of perennials to grow, and they give an abundance of beauty with a minimum of care (or no care in some cases). The name, Iris, comes from Greek mythology and means “the goddess of the rainbow”. The symbol, the fleur-de-lis, that is most often associated with the French Flag is a representation of the genus Iris, being composed of three petals and three drooping sepals. In iris jargon, the petals are called “standards” and the sepals “falls.”
Your grandmother most likely referred to these plants as “flags” and in her day were mostly seen in either white, yellow or purple. Today with many thousands of registered irises available, they truly are living up to their namesake — rainbow. We now enjoy iris blooms that have multiple colors within a single flower, patterns of color such as edge banding and stippling and almost striped color patterns referred to as “broken color.”
Even the form of the iris has evolved through time, yielding such things as “space-age iris” which have, in addition to standards and falls, strange appendages such as “horns,” “spoons” and “flounces.” Modern iris blooms are also generally much larger and have heavier texture than their ancestors.
Iris is a genus of 260 species of flowering plants with showy flowers. The species that we are all most familiar with is the German or bearded iris, which comes in sizes ranging from dwarf to tall.
Planting is generally done in the fall from bare root rhizomes, which can remain out of the ground for extended periods of time if they are properly dried and kept from moisture or sunlight. Irises grown in pots can be planted any time of year.
Irises will tolerate almost any garden soil but they do not like wet feet so good drainage is a must. They like full sun but will still perform well in our climate with six hours of sun a day. Once established, they require little care and are drought tolerant. For maximum bloom, irises should be divided when they become overcrowded, usually no more than once every three or four years.
To learn more, go to the American Iris Society at www. irises.org.
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