I've not been into irises for long and have only recently realised that I don't like there to be any white patches on them at all. I see an iris online and like the look of it but seem to gloss over the white patch and only see the pretty colours. When the iris blooms at my place I immediately see that patch of white and hate it. I also don't like ones that fade. Colour mixtures that look great online also disappoint me in real life. I have come to realise that more than two solid colours is enough to make me dislike an iris. This doesn't stop me from admiring irises like Care To Dance even though it has white standards which I know I won't like.

What traits do you not like in an iris?

The white patch on Parting Glances ruins it for me.

Lol, there are so many things that I dislike or outright hate about irises that it's somewhat bemusing that I grow them at all, never mind have as many as I do.

I hate their relatively low budcount (compared to daylilies).

I hate that the SDBs, IBs, and BBs have even fewer buds than the TBs.

I hate their relatively short period of bloom (again, compared to daylilies... 2 weeks vs 5 weeks minimum). Irises that have "show stalks" of 3 blooms open at once are the worst, because as garden plants they are the worst (the bloom period is over too quickly).

I think rhizomes are ugly. (Sorry, but they are.) I hate that I can't cover the bearded iris rhizomes up with mulch or something, so that I don't have to look at them.

I hate having to constantly clean up dead foliage (a trait shared by daylilies), and I hate it worse that the drier the dead foliage, the harder it is to tear off. (Once a leaf starts yellowing at the tip and heading downwards, I now pull it off, to save myself trouble later.)

I hate muddy color (mostly noticeable in "orange" and "red" irises). (Some daylilies are muddy too. I hate muddy color in anything.)

I hate brown irises specifically. (Mud.)

While I am generally in favor of fragrance, the stronger the better, I hate the sickly-musky smell of some irises.

I hate rebloomers that don't rebloom, or else try to do so in the winter.

I hate that rebloomers generally aren't as advanced in form or color patterns as the spring-only blooming irises.

I hate irises whose stalks fall over.

I hate TBs that are shorter (even though their stalks *don't* fall over).

I hate smaller flowers on TBs.

I hate that irises are seemingly so sensitive to crowding that it turns off their bloom, necessitating frequent division (at least, if they are pot grown).

While I like Space Agers, I hate it when the blooms are not consistent in form (they can't decide if they want to form horns, spoons, or flounces).

I think that's enough to start with.

(It's maybe a good thing I didn't get outdoors today... I might have been kicking more irises out the door.)

I hear you, Marilyn.

I hate the way weeds will seed right against the rhizome making it impossible to get them out.
I get more pleasure out of waiting for the stalks to appear than I get out of the blooms themselves.


I dislike the short flowering season, but I like the way each season makes me plan what will move where for the following year. I always think that the year I walk out into the garden and realise everything is in exactly the right place and it's basically perfect, that I may have jinxed myself to never experience another such time.

I hate that my garden is at its very best this coming weekend, but it's Craft Fair weekend around here and everybody avoids going out because there are tourists everywhere, thus nobody but me ever sees my garden at its best.

Oh my goodness... I am right there with you Poly...
I don't like muddy colors either. I love yellow, but by golly it better be a clean clear yellow. Maui Moonlight is a favorite. I don't care much for white, mostly because in the rainy PNW it just turns to mush. I don't like petals without substance - again they don't hold up to rain. There are some color combo's I just don't like.
I don't enjoy having to dig/divide very much, I think mostly because I can't stand to throw plants away, and if I can't find a home for everything that got divided...
The short bloom season, yes and no.
Compared to daylilies, iris are easier I think just in that they don't need so much water. Water is expensive (I'm on city water) and honestly dragging hoses and sprinklers around is my least favorite thing to do. Daylilies are fairly drought tolerant but if you want nice foliage and good blooms they do need water!
I don't like the current trend of super ruffly petals. Some of them don't even look like an actual iris. I also find that some of these newer ones are very poor growers for us average folks. I don't know if it's because the focus on color and form has overridden the hardiness gene? Some seem awfully prone to bloom-out. Why am I spending all this money on one stalk, one year, only to have it likely die?

Hate is probably a bit strong, but you won't find irises with these traits in my garden:

Space-agers (flounces/horns/spoons). Nope, sorry, they just look wrong.

Broken-colour Irises. I am very careful about viruses with my orchids (I no doubt look paranoid, but even the New Zealand commercial growers' guide agrees with my "paranoia") and because broken colours in many plants originated with viruses (e.g. Tulips) that sits in the back of my mind. Apart from that, the lack of regularity/symmetry about at least one axis bugs me!

"Flatties". It's one thing to grow the types of irises that are naturally flatter (e.g. Dietes), but the Tall Bearded mutants like this are just not for me.

I hate when the stems aren't strong enough to support the flower so they fall over.
I hate that the bloom season isn't longer
I do not like when the standards flop open.
I do not like droopy falls, either.

I love huge very ruffled flowers, so anything other than that is a disappointment to me. I don't hate those others per se, it's just that contrary to claims, iris do take a lot of care so I want to put in that effort for the ones that really turn me on.

I tend not to like the broken colors for 2 reasons: they tend not to be huge and very ruffled and the randomness of the color. I love patches, lines, speckles and blends, but what makes them beautiful is they have a symmetry. A broken color, Don't Doubt Dalton, recently won the top award but it's not my cup of tea. What would make me love it? If the standards and falls were edged with a dark purple or even gold band to give some form (in the painterly use of the the term form) to the random dots, to compress the visual energy of the random splashes into a package. That would blow my mind.

I don't grow many Iris, so I can't comment on traits other than appearance.
I am most definitely not an experienced grower, but I do have a bit of a problem scrolling through photos.

For me, I tend to lean towards "simpler" color combinations and those that are not very visually noisy...

There are exceptions of course, but I do personally agree with Lola's statement on Irises with >2 colors. If there are more, I usually prefer them to be simple blocks, as opposed to gradients.
In addition to those two points, saturation of color is another thing I find myself being picky about. Because of the glaucous foliage of most bearded Iris, I find it a bit disturbing to see such saturated vibrant purples against a cool, misty green. Same thing with emerging buds.

These photos are great, I am not criticizing any of the photographers here. I am just simply silly when it comes to what I like!


So, I really don't mind muddy colors. I quite enjoy them, actually. But, I really only like the cooler tones, and I really enjoy muddiness with at least a bit of depth in coloration.

I find this extremely warm and muddy bloom (and the vibrant falls) to very overwhelming, especially against the foliage.


I like this hybrid much better in terms of saturation, although I do find it a bit to warm.


I suppose I just don't often enjoy rusty colors. Here's an exception. It's simple, but I love it. The deeper maroon is offset with the clean and cool lilac. The slight yellow on the undersides of the falls I also love.


Enjoy the slight green of this one...


Lastly, I don't really enjoy a ton of speckling and netting, I find it quite noisy.



I do like the patterning on this specific hybrid. It's very simple. Very effective. Love the depth in color within the veins themselves.


I enjoy the green on the sides of the falls


This is one of my favorites. The contrast is stunning, and the emerging buds compliment the open blooms and foliage so well.

The number one thing I dislike and avoid is open standards on an iris.I also dislike short stems,iris that can't hold their blooms on their stems and flop over,and smaller blooms on TB's.
I don't like light solid yellow iris or 2 tone orange iris.I ,however,love a solid darker orange iris.I don't care much for green coloration in my iris.
I don't like and agree that the bloom season is too short,that newer varieties seem to not be as hardy,and are prone to bloom out or don't survive after the first year or two.
I don't like solid colored iris that lack good saturation of color.
I am sure there are other things,but this is all I can think of in the moment.

All I can say by reading this is thank heavens there are thousands of registered iris out there so everyone can have the specific iris that they like. There is really no iris I hate. But I DO hate iris borers very much.

I hate that I can't have all of the irises that I love. I hate that I can't keep increasing the number of beds because I can't keep up with the work of keeping them clean as I'm getting older. I do tend to cull the ones that don't stand up to normal weather and fall over. I dislike them if they don't bloom more than once every few years. I tend to migrate to the earth tones, but am OK with other colors. Not a fan of flatties or space agers. I like that some irises have great garden appeal, and others have more of a bloom appeal. A few have both. I like when I can walk past a clump of irises and get a wave of fragrance from a distance.

I am glad to see that I am not alone in hating certain aspects of irises. I was almost afraid that I would be run out of the forum!

I DO like the drought tolerance of the irises. Daylilies are often touted to be drought tolerant, but in my experience, that has not been the case. I have lost daylilies due to drought (including one seedling this year) but rarely irises. And even when the daylilies survive the drought, as someone else posted, they don't bloom or the blooms are pitiful - small and won't open properly. (We were advised that for at least a week prior to a show, to do extra watering, to pump up the blooms - both in size and so that they would open well.)

I only have one broken color iris, which I got from our club ages ago. In terms of ruffling and stalk height it's not that great (and maybe should be purged), but I'd like to see it bloom again before I make that decision. (Anyway, I'm partial to the name! And I should probably have at least one broken color iris in the garden, for the sake of diversity. )



This one is described as having "lines and speckles", though I don't think that you can really call it a "broken color" iris. I'm somewhat partial to it, even though it is not as ruffled as I would like. But the colors, at least, are clean. (I agree that it could use a nice colored edge on it...)



Maybe we need a thread on things we love about irises (or love to see on irises)? I'm a sucker for diamond dusting and gilt edges, though I have yet to see an iris that can match a daylily for diamond dusting. SPARKLING SILVER comes about as close as I have seen when it comes to diamond dusting, but the bloom could be fancier, for my taste.



If only we can get irises with all the traits that we like in one package!

Yes, I also hate it when you can't rely on an iris to bloom every year. (With our diminishing gardening years as we age, this is vitally important.)

Ditto I hate that I can't have them all, and in fact need to downsize (because of lack of sunny space and the ability to care for them all).

And, I ditto love catching elusive glimpses of fragrance when I walk by.

I'm not entirely sure that I've seen an iris yet that can grab me from across the garden and drag me over to look at it (something I *have* experienced with a particular red daylily). I imagine if any irises could do that, they would be the tall, LARGE flowered and brightly colored irises such as THAT'S ALL FOLKS and MESMERIZER (both of which certainly demand your attention when you are close by).

Annnd, another hate.... I hate it that the PCI irises are so hard to get established! I've killed off so many of them.

I love it that you all are reminding me of some of the other traits I dislike so when I order irises from now on I can dismiss many from the list instead of being disappointed with my purchases.

I have decided to cull some of my irises because they have a trait I dislike and I am creating areas of the garden for the uglies to live in instead of evicting them and replacing them with something I love.

I also hate the flat ones, asymmetric ones, and ones where the stalks snap off for no reason. I dislike the ones that only flower ever couple of years. I hate irises that look completely different in shadow than they do in sun. They are like Jekyll and Hyde.

I don't like heavy ruffles (see Musicality) and I really don't like laced ruffled irises (see Just Witchery). They remind me of ornamental cabbages.





And I don't like speckled iris like Don't Doubt Dalton and Gesundheit. They look diseased.

AndreaD said:...And I don't like speckled iris like Don't Doubt Dalton and Gesundheit. They look diseased.

• Tall Bearded Iris (Iris 'Don't Doubt Dalton')
• Uploaded by Lestv

• Miniature Tall Bearded Iris (Iris 'Gesundheit')
• Uploaded by Elfenqueen

(Not just laughing at you...although that IS funny. I was reminded of a particular incident, when visiting an (honest, upright, and reputable) mineral dealer. We were offered a mineral specimen for sale, which iirc, was an aquamarine encrusted with (red) garnets. It was really something to see (imagine mid-to-dark-red globs scattered all over upright pale turquoise transparent spires), but not to our taste. We told the dealer that the specimen looked diseased, and turned it down. He was offended....but politely asked us to please keep our opinion to ourselves and not say that to anyone else. (We continue to be on good terms with this person, so it was not a fatal offense!))

Marilyn, I said something similar to someone about a rose. The name of it was Abracadabra and it was a deep red stippled with yellow. I said it should have been called 'av a cadaver because it looked like an autopsy gone wrong. Turned out it was her favourite rose.🤦‍♀️

I thought it was interesting that someone posted Decadence, as an example of something they hated. I thought I didn't like variegatas, then I saw Decadence and it rocked my world. Why do I love it so much? It is the yellow border on the falls that matches the standards. Same person likes bi-colors that are 2 distinct blocks of color. This is precisely what I do not prefer - it gives the flower a disjointed feel, a sort of something stuck on top of another thing.

Just as Decadence transformed my view of variegata, Bravery transformed my view of neglecta


So as to the hating iris thing, when I got my first tall bearded iris, I was just amazed by it. Over the years, now having over 200, I have become like a person at a dinner party who has had a meal so large that I have to undo the button on my pants. So then my host offers dessert. If they offer tiramisu or cheesecake I don't hesitate. If they were to offer cherry pie, I'd say no. It's not that I hate cherry pie. It's nice and if I were hungry I'd eat it. I have so many gorgeous iris I sometimes feel nauseous, because if I had more land/money I'd have even more. Just like tiramisu, I would eat as much as you put in front of me.

Lola - that was certainly an "oops" moment.

Tom hit the nail on the head with something I absolutely LOVE about iris: "I like when I can walk past a clump of irises and get a wave of fragrance from a distance." Couldn't say it better!

I don't like it when there are 2 strong colors together. This is Prom Court. I have this one and it's on my list to cull.


I love it when I see one that draws me to it time and again, like Lemon Moonbeam:

I love Lemon Moonbeam too. Got it as a bonus. What a nice surprise that was.