I've been working for about a year and a half toward building an online iris business specializing in Fragrant Irises. I want to carry as many intensely fragrant historic irises as I can obtain, but I find fragrance descriptions lacking for many of the historics.

If you have personally grown any historic irises with very strong fragrance would you please be kind enough to share the names of those cultivars?

Thank you!

Randy Smith
SW Kansas

rtowerbay said:
If you have personally grown any historic irises with very strong fragrance would you please be kind enough to share the names of those cultivars?
Thank you!

Randy Smith
SW Kansas

Frank Adams smells like cream soda, and Pallida Dalmatica smells like grape candy.

Deja Vu, I think we just had this discussion recently

Thank you @MamaFan!

I looked up 'Frank Adams' on Garden.org and on wiki.irises.org. It's one of those that has no mention of fragrance on either website.

I'll start looking for a source for that one. Really appreciate that!

And I'll search back through recent posts to see if I can find any discussions of intensely fragrant historics.

Randy

rtowerbay said:Thank you @MamaFan!

I looked up 'Frank Adams' on Garden.org and on wiki.irises.org. It's one of those that has no mention of fragrance on either website.

I'll start looking for a source for that one. Really appreciate that!

And I'll search back through recent posts to see if I can find any discussions of intensely fragrant historics.

Randy

yeah, it'd be worth your time. Folks mentioned coffee and chocolate aromas among others.

@MamaFan,

I did locate your recent reply on a discussion of iris fragrance as well as the link you posted to the "smell inventory" you and your daughter took through your garden.

Thank you, again!

Randy

Randy,
I used to have TB Sugar Blues, which was very fragrant---sweet. It was pretty, but for me the stalks would sometimes lean or fall over. I notice that Victoria Falls is a parent--a notorious flopper.



I don't know if you are interested in dwarf iris, but I have one called 'My Little Friend' that has a lovely fragrance. Also Teagan is often fragrant. I think with some iris, fragrance is variable based on bloom age or time of day.

Ooops. I guess My Little Friend and Teagan are not historics.

Laurie,

No worries. I'm interested in any intensely fragrant iris. Just trying to identify intensely fragrant historic irises because there is often limited information available on them.

I've been able to identify a few from descriptions in older iris books and catalogs.

I've also been gifted a few historic cultivars by some folks at HIPS (Historic Iris Preservation Society). Once I have sufficient inventory I'll offer those in my online catalog.

If folks here can help me by identifying extremely fragrant historics then I'll start looking for a source, order in one or two rhizomes to test, then add that cultivar to my inventory if it proves to have a truly strong fragrance.

Thank you for the suggestions!

I'll be interested to see your list. I don't know of many irises with a fragrance so strong that you notice it as you walk by.

Laurie beat me to it. Sugar Blues is very fragrant. It re-blooms in my zone and you can smell it from a distance.

Florentina!
second is a yellow noid I have...

I will also vote for Sugar Blues and Painted Doll
I will have to check in the spring again, assess some of the others...

My vote is for Loreley, it doesn't have the best form, but it sure has a nice pronounced fragrance.

@iciris, @dirtdorphins, @tveguy3,

Thank you for your responses!

I have Florentina growing in my nursery rows now but won't see any blooms until next year.

I also have Sugar Blues and it did bloom for me this fall already. It does have a nice fragrance.

Painted doll is a beauty. Looks like it was registered in 1957 and introduced in 1964. Neither it nor Loreley are listed in the databases as having fragrance. That's exactly why I need your help to identify the most fragrant historics.

@dirtdorphins - Should you ever wish to sell a few rhizomes of that fragrant yellow NOID I would be a buyer!

Thank you All, again.

Randy

Free for postage!
I can throw in a Painted Doll, plus a 'stolen-river-iris' which is an unidentified historic with nice fragrance too
In fact I keep both these unknowns for their fragrance. I got rid of all my other unknowns that weren't fragrant.
I will do a smell-check this spring, I know there is fragrance to the other historics I have, but I don't recall how strong it is or isn't at the moment...
i.e.
Whole Cloth and Great Lakes are lovely together, and they do smell good

but they are with Florentina

and Marie Pavie roses, plus there are some powerful daphnes and an abelia close by so I'm struggling to recall their specific contributions to the smellapalooza

Whole Cloth and Great Lakes do make a beautiful pairing!

And I'll gladly pay postage for any of your fragrant rhizomes you wish to share. Thank you!

Randy

Dirtdorphin,. If you have enough, I would love 1 or 2 of each when I get my box from you next year.

Okay, I'll do a smell check and inventory in spring--Whole Cloth might be iffy, but I should have plenty of the others

dirtdorphins said: a 'stolen-river-iris' which is an unidentified historic with nice fragrance too

Dirt, do you have pictures of 'stolen-river' and your fragrant yellow noids? Those might go on my want list, too!

Edited to add: Do you have to stake them?

I do--somewhere.
I don't know where, but I do know they are old, former computer, some hard drive now, and not easy to find.
Not on my list of emergencies. Sorry.
Might be easier for me to find when I posted them in some thread on here

No staking needed, grow like weeds, bloom in shade--seriously, I abuse them and they don't mind.

Mary Francis is another awesome, fragrant, historic-now, iris that I love! Just can't say enough good things about that one!

dirtdorphins said:stolen-river-iris' which is an unidentified historic with nice fragrance too

Is this a term or is it just describing one peticular iris.