Late to the party, but wanted to say welcome to you, Tamara.

Me Too,

Hi! I'm sorry but I didn't had time to answer you all because one of my sisters married this weekend :)

ge1836 - the idea with the perrenials looks interesting, thanks for the photos

Muddymitts, UndertheSun, cbelt1, lovemyhouse, iciris - thank you all so much for welcoming me too

grannysgarden - I will for sure I will also post photos, because I really like to make closeup photos of flowers

You and close-up photos are most welcome here, darksome!

Jan Wax

to the best Iris forum on the web! I am fairly new to Iris also. I am learning something here all the time. Plus, I love looking

at everyone's pics. I am sure you will be pleased with your new garden.

Teresa in KY

Hi Tamara, It's great to have you here! It sounds like you have put a lot of time, thought and effort into your garden plan. But my experience with iris : starting with no guidance and needing to get them into the ground quickly, made no difference in the spectacular outcome. They astounded my neighbors and me. I don't think I was just lucky; I think iris like to please.... and do if you give them just half a chance!

darksome

bluegrassmom - thank you ;) I agree about the pics - I really enjoy to look at them, it's very helpful for picking the right plant About my garden - I can't wait that the roses that I planted few months ago start to bloom!

MileHighGardner - thank you too! That's good to hear - I'm really a total beginner with irises and I really cant wait to have them in my garden :). What worries me the most is how to prevent rotting and choosing the best substrate for my raised bed. I think the best choice would be that I buy a good substrate - soil for them, mine in the garden has a little too much clay in it I think.

froggardener - thank you too

Omg now I have a big problem.. Mid america garden has so many choices that I fell in love with even more cultivars.

Here's just a collage of what looks like a pretty choice to me..



Raven Girl - still looks so interesting to me.. The ruffling looks so classy and elegant.
Clash of Titan's - this one seems pompous and looks so stunning because of the big blue beards and the vibrant color.
Dragon Dance - is still so interesting to me. I loove the unusual buff coloring combined with the striking blue blaze.
Cafe D'Amour - seems unique colored
Bronze Heart - I love that it has so much colors. The orange/bronze beard, tiny yellowish tones.. combined with purple falls and light blue/purple standards, lightly rimmed.
French Lavender - the photos in the database look stunning!
All Ashore - looks like a good partner with Bronze Heart. Both share a bronze/orange beard. I love that All Ashore looks even more bluish, even the standards which are olive toned.
Nothing But Class - not sure about this one.. it's quite different than the others but I love the blue wash and the heavy ruffling.
Chocolates and Silk - the coloring of this one seems unique to me.. it's a special purple isn't it? And the beards look so interesting because they are so dark colored.
Fred and Ginger - I looove the standards! Purplish white harmony. And the special beards! Half coral half blue, white tipped. It also has light blue falls that are banded cameo pink.
Haunted Heart - is still so special to me. I looove the unusual purplish veining.
Super Model - the ruffling is unique. I love it! It has some similarities with Bolshoi.. but I can't decide wich looks better.. Probably Super Model because I like the lighter beards more in that combination.

Other favorites are..

etc.. But they are second choices, especially the one that are quite different (in coloring) than my first choices. There are too many!

I'm also interested in Strut your Stuff or House Arrest.. anyone can tell me which one looks better in real life?


What I'm totally sure is that I want All Ashore and probably Bronze Heart.. why are the expensive ones always most attracting to me? ..look at this two pictures where they are combined with Haunted Heart (which is also a favourite) on the left:






Any thoughts?

Heavenly Host is drop-dead gorgeous -- and should not be on your second-choice list, but your first-choice list.

Also -- Strut Your Stuff is splendid.

Thank you for your opinion! There are really to many! Heavenly Host would probably look splendid next to Raven Girl for the contrast and next to Haunted Heart for intensify the grey, purplish, beige tones that it has.

Edit:
I see that I misunderstood something and now it appears like the photo of Haunted Heart+All Ashore is from me. Is that okay or not? Because the owner of the photo is a nursery from Ukraine..

Hi Tamara and I live in the EU and have ordered both from Mid America in the US and from Tempo Two in Australia. Both of them offer the same kind of deal you describe - they make one large shipment of all the EU orders to France, via the Netherlands, so save lots of money for the end customer.
So you might like to take a look at Tempo Two as well! I received a big order from them a few weeks ago and the rhizomes are already doing well, with lots of increases beginning to show.

Or you could just stick to Mid America to make your life easier! I really like your choices of iris.

Hi cliftoncat and
Mid America has so many choices.. I'm not sure about Tempo Two.. I looked at the actual catalogue which is nice but there are some cultivars that are missing but are avaliable at Mid America. I would love to have some of their (Blyth) cultivars from the past years but it looks like they don't sell all of them anymore? For example Dragon Dance which is probably a must have for me The second thing is that overall Mid America looks cheaper and are now in the season to send the rhizomes. I'm not pretty sure how it is when I order from Australia.. they ship until april when it's here in Slovenia where I live still not very very warm.. I understand that shipping times are longer so I could get them in may, but I'm still unsure . I already contacted them too but didn't get an answer yet.. maybe they overlooked it.. so I will send another email

Tamara, since you're happy with Mid America (and you're right, they have lots of wonderful choices), why not just order from them this time around?
When I placed my last order with Barry Blyth (Tempo Two) I asked about an iris that wasn't listed in this year's catalogue and he sent it to me as a bonus plant. Sometimes breeders don't list a plant because they are building up stocks - so it's always worth asking. Mid America has lots of Blyth irises, so you can probably get most of what you want from them. Both companies have been really friendly and helpful in my experience.

For future info, European suppliers I buy from include Cayeux, Bourdillon, Iriseraie de Gombault and Bianco (three in France and one in Italy). There is a French Iris Society, the Societe Francaise des Iris et Plantes Bulbeuses, that lists suppliers in lots of countries and has some interesting articles:

http://www.iris-bulbeuses.org

I'm looking forward to seeing photos of your new iris bed!

Tamara, the nice thing about irises is that you can plant some, watch them and then move them around or add or delete more. It's easy to trade once you have a garden of them growing. That can be a fairly inexpensive way to build up the varieties.
It will all work out beautifully. Be sure to post pictures!

Mika - I'm pretty sure that Tempo Two has it's pluses too but at this point I really have a tendence to get the plants from Mid America To know it's possible to get also plants that are not listed is helpful, so thank you

Thanks for the link and the list of the suppliers, it's really helpful because it's quite time consuming to check out all the nurseries and than find out that most of them don't ship to EU. I actually sent a mail to all the nurseries that are listed on the iris forum to pick out favourites, but I must admit that most of the EU nurseries look very tempting to me too! I actually have two friends that want to buy some rhizomes too so maybe I will make two orders - one from Mid America and one from an EU site

DaveinPA - it's just that I have a rather small place planned for irises and want to get out the best results.. I'm quite a perfectionist when it comes to pick out the plants - had the same time consuming planning situation with my roses, but I think it was it worth Still, I agree, having irises in the garden looks like a really fun thing

Btw.. I found out that the spot where I plan to plant them has exactly 6h of sun.. I'm really worried if this is enough? It's sunny from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
I will post pictures for sure!

6 hours should do nicely !

Great , thanks Arlyn

10 am to 6 pm is 8 hours which is certainly plenty.