Lilli, probably you got too small bulbs when you purchased your Dutch Irises. Or they had not been heat treating them the way they should have. Mine developed much bigger bulbs in their second year.

A dark pot might help some, but that would be highly dependent on the year and where you placed that pot. I haven't tried Dutch Irises in a pot, but in ground they divide very quickly. I suspect that when grown in a pot, they would need annual division and replanting to perform their best.... and if you had to do that, you could just as easily lift them and store them warm.

Of course if every summer would be as hot as last year, heat treating them probably wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately I removed mine before I knew we were going to have a record-breaking hot and dry summer... otherwise I would just have left them in place ...and hopefully enjoyed the blooms this spring.

I don't remember what I did with mine after they failed to bloom, it was some time ago. I'm not going to try them again before things are more settled here. I don't really need more garden work than I have already.

My least favorites would be Patina and Everything Plus. Everything Plus NEVER is over 20 inches tall, no branching or budcount

Although this picture really flatters it, the shape starts out like this picture, then the standards spread apart. The color isn't as good as this either. Got rid of it a long time ago.

William: Eye of the Tiger is beautiful. But I get you.. If I have to cold treat something, it isn't staying. Though I might make exceptions for MDBs I already have if we had a year with no freeze.

@shawnsteve A belated answer to your questions. I have lots of irises I like better!

As to the NOID, I am not sure which one I mentioned. Most of my 40+ irises have become NOIDs due to my move from California and loss of labels. I had purchased 20 irises from a major hobbyist seven years ago, before I knew much about growing irises. She wrote the names on the leaves, but once the leaves dried out, the names were not readable. I regret not writing them down. I did a lot of research, and found a lot of "looks like" names, so I labeled them as best I could, just for my database. When my husband re-landscaped the yard last spring, I asked him to keep the irises with their labels, but he must have misheard me, because I went out to find all the irises in one pile and the labels in another. So most are basically NOIDs, for now, except for the small percentage that had courage enough to bloom last year. I am very anxious for bloom season to start for me this year! The middle of May is the usual date except for the early dwarfs.

I bought five irises from Schreiner's two years ago -- so those are labeled, but two rotted. I see what people are saying about the historics being more reliable.

By the way, I was well into my 40s before I realized 'puce' was not a snotty green color.

@LynnDell I still think it is funny about that "color mix up" as there were actual discussions online regarding that very topic. Some words get into use & over time, get repeated over many years time... Eventually, some words get added to the Dictionary, after being in common use.
But, as far as I know, I heard it used in a movie, to describe dyed shoes.
While others say it was on a Crayola crayon & some claimed to have read it in books. Even so, I really do not know, how so many could "intentionally reverse" the description of two distinctly different colors. I no longer have access to a huge old Webster's...
Some bearded Iris are starting to flower here ( the early ones) but the whole idea of just trying to I.D the truly historic, it seems, a rather daunting task...

'Quandary' decided that it still wanted to bloom and while the stem was short and a bit deformed (from the weird weather I assume) I still saw enough of it, to want to keep it.
Cat's Eye is also going to stay for now. The colors were much better this year, because it was colder during bloom. Also it had an okay amount of stems.

To my surprise I'm going to remove this iris:


This year (after replanting it last year) it didn't bloom well at all. Few stems and the blooms had yet again difficulties to open properly, just as when I first received it. The blooms are also short-lived, at least in warm weather. I mostly grow the SDB's for their look in clumps, so if they don't perform, they can't stay here.

I just started iris growing last fall, so this spring is my first time to see them bloom. For 7 iris I had, Immortality is my favorite, probably due to the fragrance. The disappointed one is Galicia, as the vendor picture is much more lighter than the real flower. And mine one does not have the interesting spot in the falls. I also did not fan Batic that much. The color is just too strong for me, and it is a significantly shorter than my TB iris, it just looked awkward in my garden. I don't have Earl of Essex. I looked at its child plant, one called "Autumn Circus" caught my eye. Does anyone have both? I think I like AC more, because the latter has more veins in the falls.

to the iris forum. Batik is a Boarder Bearded iris, not a tall bearded, so it will be shorter.

PP!

to the forum PP

PP ~ to the Iris Forum!!!