Iris barbatula

[Tristan_He]

Hi, I have a potful of this years seedlings growing well from Bjørnar Olsen's collection. Does anyone have any advice on its cultivation?

Thanks, Tristan

[Maggi Young]

 Oron Peri and Peter Taggart  both know about this plant. Peter suggests it needs summer moisture in the West of Scotland.   So I think most types of decent moisture retentive but well-drained  soil  will be what it needs. Lesley Cox  grows it too .... so there should be some good advice  for you from some of these folks! !

[Lesley Cox]

I just wrote a considerable post about this then clicked on Peter's suggests before posting and have lost the lot. I'll have to start again. Here we go then.

I haven't met you before Tristan so a warm welcome to the Forum, the best place to be when not actually out in the garden.

As Maggi says, I grow Iris barbatula too and I can tell you it is a perfect honey, a little gem. Mine came originally from the ACE expedition or something similar and I have had it since about 1995 from a local small nursery so it is permanent and easy to grow. I grow it in a pot so I can take it about but also in the open garden which is well drained and composty with plenty humus and leaf mould and some added sharp grit though I think it is the good drainage that is most important. It is in full sun but never dries out completely and I think Peter is right about that. It flowers freely for me and also sets seeds which have a little cream aril, as with oncocyclus species. I find that the seedlings are best left in their seed pot for an extra season after germination as the tiny seedlings have tuberous roots and if they don't have enough time to develop some size, can be lost in that first year. Having said that, seedlings sown in 2013 were pricked into small pots at about 6 months old and all have survived so far (they're dormant now, in the southern hemisphere winter). The plants divide successfully too, after flowering or while dormant.

It flowers here in early summer (November/December) and if the plant has a fault it is that the individual flowers are short-lived, just a day, occasionally two but there is a continuation so an established plant performs well and beautifully. The flowers are just about stemless, on short or slightly longer tubes, depending on conditions. The tubes grow longer when in a pot or so I have found; in the open garden the flowers appear to be right at ground level.

I'm sure you will come to love this little species as much as I do.

[David Nicholson]

................I grow it in a pot so I can take it about.......................

I have this vision of Lesley, complete with flowery hat, setting off for the shops, with her little pot fitted with a set of wheels and firmly attached to Lesley's wrist by a lead

[arisaema]

Well drained sounds right, it's a roadside weed in Xiaozhongdian, growing in a thin layer of loam on top of what looks like river gravel. Here's the habitat, second shot shows what kind of soil it grows in:

(Edit: Love the resize function!)

[Tristan_He]

Thanks all for the advice (especially Lesley). Sounds like it should not be too difficult then.

Somehow I had visions of this growing in flower-filled yak-grazed pastures, rather than by the side of the road! 

[Maggi Young]

(Edit: Love the resize function!)

 Good, isn't it? You'd hardly need an "app" eh??!!!!!     

[Lesley Cox]

Wow! I'd be thriled to have a roadside weed like that. Maybe I can arrange it in the future. I've occasionally had Dactylorhiza seedlings and it would certainly beat docks and cocksfoot.

That's me all right David, I even get people come up to pat whatever little gem I have mounted on wheels on any given day. Or I did until I took Aciphylla aurea for a walk

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks for the pictures Arisaema. It puts the Iris in context. I too had been thinking of flower - if not yak- filled meadows. Up there with the primulas and gentians.