Growing Bearded Iris in your Native Cottage Garden
In this post, we’ll chat about growing irises with native plants. Companion planting with native plants and cultivated irises creates a beautiful garden filled with colors, textures AND habitat for pollinators.
Read on about the joys of irises or tap => Iris Days to skip to the sale!
Want to know a secret?
Over the past year, I’ve been planning special gardens for the front of the nursery.
Welcoming you to our backyard nursery with flowers is a great idea don’t you think?
These gardens will also show how co-planting native plants & ‘rebels’ works to support pollinators in a home garden.
IRIS are colorful!
Our garden project begins this July with the first of 3 gardens affectionately called, ‘Sunny Side Up’.
Yep, you guessed it… this garden is FULL SUN, roadside, and measures 5’ wide and is roughly 35’ long!
It’s a whopper!
and IRISES will be the Spring stars of this garden! Beautiful irises in hues of purples, corals, blues & pinks will mix with Penstemons, Monardas, and Baptisia in Spring.
For the rest of the year Iris foliage will mingle with native plants like Rudbeckias, Mountain Mints, Coneflowers, native sunflowers and colorful zinnias too.
Cultivated Iris are one of our favorite flowers
Yes we still love our native iris like Blue Flag (Iris versicolor) which we planted on our ponds edge. It is very slowly growing into it’s new home.
Did you know native iris
grow in fragile habitats such as wetlands and river banks. Clusters like these can take many years to establish and prevent erosion of stream banks.
We do not use native iris in our early Summer bouquets or in our propagation.
We encourage you to protect wild habitats and not disturb wild iris populations no matter how abundant the population is.
After all even ducks like iris flowers~
Back to those REBEL IRIS…
Bearded Iris are one of our favorite 'rebel' flowers for pollinators especially large bees. We LOVE to see in the cutting garden for making our cheerful ‘Cottage Bouquets’
To create the Sunny Side Up garden, we’re going to need a LOT of irises! So we’re placing a special order for irises from the famous Schreiner's Gardens!
And of course we’re going to share the fun & DEALS!
We follow a 75/25 ‘rule’...
As I design the Sunny Side Up garden this rule is central to all the plant selections.
Using this as a guide, 75% your plants are native species. The remaining 25% of your garden can be ‘rebels’ cultivated plants you love like zinnias, marigolds and iris.
So what does it take to be a ‘rebel’ plant or flower here at Lazy Dirt Flower Farm?
The shape of blooms must be easy access to pollen, nectar and shelter for pollinators. For example flowers with open petals or disks create platforms for pollinators of different sizes.
‘Rebels’ must also provide food & shelter for pollinators thru 4 seasons such as zinnia stalks provide shelter for small native bees.
‘AND the cultivated plant must NOT be listed on any invasive species list especially for our area. Butterfly Bush or Purple Loosestrife are good example of the ‘naughty list’ not making into our gardens.
How are Bearded Iris rebels?
They are not on the invasive species list.
Cultivated Iris are "pollinator-friendly as the pollen is very easily found by native bees when they land on the 'falls' and easily walk through the iris beard to get to the center of the flower" (Penn State Extension)
Think of the ‘falls’ as a welcome mat for pollinators~
(do you think it tickles the bees feet?)
This is the ‘Falls’ of an Iris
Native Plants & Bearded Iris
Next Spring, the Sunny Side Up Garden will have a medley of colorful irises May thru June in soft corals, pinks & blues. Plus a little patch of colorful iris in yellow, purple, magenta like Megabucks.
After all one does like a splash of color!
I tend to design my gardens with drifts of each plant in 3-7 plants selected from categories of ‘Spikes/Spillers, Thrillers, and Fillers’.
So far these native companion plants for the irises are in the lineup:
False Blue Indigo, Calico and Foxglove Penstemon, Phlox, Wild Bergamot and a splash of native Lupine for ‘spikes’ for Spring.
For Summer thru Fall: Little Bluestem, Purple Coneflowers, Tall Coreopsis, Brown-Eyed Susan & Common Yarrow.
Autumn blooms: Native asters will mix with any reblooming iris. Asters are amazing plants crucial food sources for pollinators (If you are new to native asters check out ‘Nuts of Natives’ post~ one of my pals fabulous blog posts about these Autumn beauties!
Sharing the beauty of iris…
We need LOTS of irises for the Sunny Side Up gardens. So we’re placing a special custom order with Schreiner’s Gardens on July 15.
They are a world renowned iris farm in Oregon spanning 9 decades breeding & growing award wining iris. (from seed to plant it takes them 10 years to release one variety!)
It’s safe to say~ these are going to be AMAZING iris stock!
July 15th is when I’m placing the order..
If you want to jump into iris adventure you must PLACE YOUR ORDER BEFORE MIDNIGHT JULY 14th!
Why should you jump into the Iris Days Sale?
Iris are very easy to grow! See here how easy it is here
You'll get big Lazy Dirt Discount pricing on your irises!
WE PAY FOR SHIPPING! Saving you $20 or more!
2 exclusive collections created by Lazy Dirt Flower Farm and over 8 single varieties!
ONTARIO IRIS COLLECTION this mix of 9 iris is inspired by watching lots of sunsets over Lake Ontario. A collection of iris in coral-pinks, blues and violets is perfect for Spring time.
SURPRISE IRIS COLLECTION a delightful box of 10 or 20 bearded iris for those who LOVE garden adventures.
I’m delighted to share this fun gardening adventure with you!
Questions about the Iris Days Sale?
Maybe you want to a custom order? Like a special package for growing your own wedding flowers?
Contact me here BEFORE July 14th!
