Growing Pacifica Iris for Foliage

By Kathleen Sayce 

Among the dozen or so species of Pacifica Iris, foliage is outstanding in only a few. By outstanding, I mean not simply green, but evergreen, and more, a luscious green color--dark, medium or light green, golden to blue-gray in tone. Leaves should also be shiny, substantial in feel, and durable. This creates a lovely dark anchor to other plants in the garden. 

Iris's shiny dark green fans are a good foil for dying fringecup foliage, and give the ground cover at a time when taller plants are flowering. 

Some Pacifica Iris foliage is lustrous and green year round. Use it in the garden to balance other plants even when it is not in flower.

One of the oft-repeated statements made about Pacific Iris is that leaf fibers were used by Native Americans to weave nets to trap, among other animals, elk. Hefty fiber levels in leaves means durability, and durability plus evergreen elevates foliage from one season to four. Take time to search out those sturdy-leaved species' selections and hybrids--they have year round presence in the garden.

I. innominata during flowering:  leaves are dark green, shiny and durable.

Iris innominata and its close cousin Iris thompsonii have narrow, dark green, evergreen leaves less than fifteen inches long. These species grow in dense tufts to slowly increasing circles, and then rings, if you are slow to divide and replant. They are useful as foliage accents in small scale spots or along border edges, planted with other low growing plants, including primroses and small bulbs. 

For larger plants with a bigger garden presence, look at Iris douglasiana. Many hybrids and selections of this species have light to medium green leaves, which may or may not look good fall through spring. A few have striking dark green foliage, which gives these irises a strong garden presence year round. 

Leaves range from less than twelve inches to more than thirty inches long. I mentioned the lack of tall Iris douglasiana in current hybrid and species offerings a few months ago. Another reason to seek those tall vigorous Iris douglasiana selections is to have foliage for the mid to back borders. 

Iris douglasiana, wild form, has great year round foliage, here it grows with fringecups, Tellima grandiflora (Saxifragaceae) and a rhododendron. 

This wild-collected Iris douglasiana is from Cape Blanco, Oregon; it has medium lavender flowers of basic species appearance, but the foliage is outstanding. With leaves around twenty inches long, foliage on this iris is striking dark green on a medium sized plant. I grow this one for its luscious foliage; the flowers are an added benefit for a few weeks each year. 

I. douglasiana x I. chrysophylla is taller, vigorous, with foliage that looks good year round. 

Another good foliage iris is an Iris douglasiana x I. chrysophylla cross. Flowers are purple and small, but the foliage is outstanding, medium green, shiny and lovely year round. With leaves more than twenty five inches long, this plant makes vigorous fountains of green all year—a good plant for mid border locations. It is especially nice interplanted with lilies: Summer-flowering Lilium ‘Cascablanca’ is short enough to be balanced nicely by the dark green fountains after this iris is done flowering in spring. 

Iris 'Burnt Sugar' is an unregistered Pacifica Iris, probably an I. douglaisana x I. innominata hybrid. Flowers are species-like, and the evergreen foliage is excellent. 

Look for outstanding light green to yellow-green foliage, short to tall, and for good foliage irises taller than thirty inches, also for any sign of white striping on dark green leaves, and other color variations on green, including red to purple. 

Readers:  tell us about Pacifica Iris selections that have great foliage, and please post here if you have plant suggestions to share. 

Autumn: Transplanting time for Pacifica Iris

Kathleen Sayce 

September 20, 2015

Many irises are easy to transplant at any time of year. Dig them up, divide, cart to new homes and tuck in. Clip off some leaves to reduce moisture loss while the new roots form, and away they go. Not so for PCIs. Treat them this way, and they go root tips up before you can find your watering can.

Healthy PCI transplants:  new fans, and healthy new white roots. Both of these I. douglasiana pieces are ready to plant. 

There are two times of year to successfully transplant PCIs: Autumn and Spring.

At these times, PCI roots are in active growth. Check the roots, removing soil gently around the base of a fan or two. If there are white roots, one to four inches long, then get out the shovel and start digging. It's time.

New fans on a PCI, but no new roots yet; this plant needs to wait a few weeks before being divided.

Why Autumn and Spring for root growth? Pacifica Iris are native to the West Coast of North America, which has a Mediterranean climate––during the drought period each summer, these and other native species go dormant. In mild winter climates, PCI may have live roots all winter, but they dry down and wait out dry summers.

Summer drought duration depends on latitude, the farther south you are, the longer the duration, which varies from less than three months to more than ten months on the West Coast. I garden at 46°N, so droughts usually last less than three months, though this year it was more than five.

If you water regularly, PCI initiate new roots earlier in the fall than do those depending on rain. You can divide and transplant much earlier in the fall and later in the spring.

This flat of PCI seedlings has been watered regularly all summer, and is ready to move into the garden.

PCI seedlings in pots are tough, and can stand being transplanted several times in the first year or two of life. Even larger plants, one to five gallons, can withstand transplanting slightly outside the Autumn or Spring periods. These have all had regular water, as they must to live in pots.

Other tips:

Mulch after planting to keep roots cool

Amend soil with carbon, such as compost and biochar

Move plants on cool cloudy damp days rather than on hot sunny days

Add 'Superthrive' (a registered vitamin formula for plants) to the watering can

Water well for a few weeks after planting

Use a dilute liquid fertilizer when watering

Every Autumn I host a 'Come and Dig PCI' day in my garden, to share out plants to other gardens in my community. I checked my plants this week; new fans are starting to form, and new roots are short. I'll wait a week or two, until new roots are more than an inch long. 

There are exceptions; one variety has long white roots and could be divided now, but it will tolerate moving in a few weeks. The seedling PCI can be planted anytime from now until early November. They are much tougher than fan sections, which is why growing PCI from seed is so successful for many gardeners. Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris will hold its seed exchange from 1 November to the end of the year, so now is the time to be thinking about what species and hybrids you'd like to grow in your garden from seed. 

New white roots, this PCI is ready for a new home.

For western gardeners, Autumn is the best time to plant many native plants, not just Pacifica Iris. Trees, shrubs, perennials, ferns and grasses all do well if planted now (late September to early November), as the weather cools and moisture arrives from the Pacific Ocean over western North America. This gives the plants a jump on growth for the coming year by establishing good root systems first, with much less water use now and in coming years. 

Purple Pacific Iris

Kathleen Sayce

Purple is a common color for many species of Pacifica Iris. Color saturation ranges from pale lavender to velvety dark purple. Many wild populations include lavender to purple flowers. Being a common color, you might think that it's boring. Hmm. Not. Between hues, shades and saturation, not to mention veins, signals, petal widths, and ruffles, there's a lot to explore, and more to come from hybridizing. 

This Iris douglasiana selection is short and blooms at the end of the main flowering period, which is June to early July in my climate. Timing makes up for the plain species-like flowers; when this one blooms, other PCIs are done.

As with other flower traits, petal widths, ruffling, signals and veining vary widely in wild flowers and in the garden, where hybridizers continue to push the boundaries on what is possible for iris flowers to achieve.

This orchid-purple iris is from Joy Creek Nursery. It was one of my very first PCIs, and is still one of my favorites. It has striking signals with a dark halo and veins on a light purple base, a yellow streak in the white, and the veins extend into the main falls. 

Sea coast populations of iris douglasiana in northern California include purple-flowered plants. Mendocino Coast Botanic Garden sells seeds from their plants, which grow on the sea cliffs in the botanic garden and seem right at home in my garden, six hundred miles north on Willapa Bay on the south coast of Washington. Similar plants flower hundreds of miles to the south at Pt Reyes, and on down the coast into central and Southern California. These plants are wind, salt and drought-hardy.

Iris douglasiana, from Mendocino Coast Botanic Gardens, has a small sturdy flower on stems held above the foliage. The plant is strong, the flowers are numerous, and the color is a nice medium purple.

A 'Gravitas' seedling has a large flower with a lovely dark color to the petals. 

Strong purples show up regularly in open pollinated garden crosses. I've learned to stop growing them all, lovely as each one is, I aim for sturdy plants with flowers held well above the foliage. This flower, above, was a surprise for its size, more than four inches across with nicely wide falls. 

Another purple favorite is an I. tenax x I. innominata cross, which produced a nice diversity of colorful seedlings, from this purple (below) to white, including some colorful veining variations in between.

This I. tenax x I. innominata seedling is one of five variations from the same seed lot, and shows the most purple. It's a reliable late spring to early summer flowering plant, long after the hybrids are done. 

PCI 'Valley Banner' was selected by Ruth Hardy from plants derived from a wild population of I. tenax x I. chrysophylla in the south Willamette Valley, in Oregon. Falls are white and heavily veined in dark purple; standards are white with narrow purple midrib; style arms are red purple. 

PCI 'Valley Banner' is a well-veined, bicolor combination. This photo was taken by Debby Cole. 

I've mentioned petal widths before, and here again are some of the variations, from wide and ruffly to narrow.

This seedling is almost pink, with a striking purple signal and central pale slash. The ruffles are over the top. This is a PCI 'San Benecio' seedling.

A neighbor showed me his PCIs this spring, and this lovely narrow-leaved specimen grew with more typical I. doug-type flowers. Why do I like narrow petals? They often hold up well in wet weather.

Will Plotner's PCI 'Wild Survivor' is a species-like hybrid with lavender flowers, slightly darker veins on the falls, and a white and yellow signal. This hybrid was a Mitchell Medal Winner a couple of years ago, see below.

PCI 'Wild Survivor' is a lavender hybrid with a species-like appearance. This can be very refreshing among highly ruffled and intensely colored selections. Photo by Richard Richards, from the SPCNI photo collection, thanks to Ken Walker. 

A maiden flower on a seedling from PCI 'Earthquake' at the south end of the yard was a lovely dark purple. The falls are velvety, ruffled, and intensely colored, with rich dark veining over the background color.

Then there is the impact of dark veins on light backgrounds, and complex signals, touched on initially with Joy Creek's orchid PCI, and again here, below, with a hybrid from Southern California. 

PCI 'Daria' has a light purple background, intense veining on falls and a large yellow signal; it's yet another variation on purple.

The take-home message about purple is that this color encompasses a wide range of hues, shades, saturations, and petal forms. As a foundation color PCIs, new variations will keep appearing for years to come.