Update: Iris douglasiana at Atlanta Botanical Garden

by Kathleen Sayce

Iris douglasiana seedling at Atlanta Botanical Garden

In January 2022, Raleigh Wasser, Horticulture Manager, Atlanta Botanical Garden, sent me a update about their lone Iris douglasiana plant, which is growing in an alpine style bed with excellent drainage. After reading Wasser’s article about the botanical garden’s alpine-style bed in the Rock Garden Quarterly, I wrote a blog post about it in June 2021. 

World of Irises readers may recall that this plant flowered last spring. The plant went on to produce a pod with about ten seeds last summer. Botanic garden staff collected the seeds and sowed them. 

Raleigh’s update takes up the narrative: “We germinated a douglasiana seed! Just put it in some potting mix and left it in a corner of our greenhouse. Of about 10 seeds this is the only one that germinated.”

I suggested she put that pot outside as winter ends, and perhaps other seeds might germinate. Seeds of Pacific Coast native irises may take one to three years to decide to sprout, even from the same pod. However, getting even one seed to germinate and thrive is wonderful! 

Reminder: Seeds of Pacific Coast native irises do not like to germinate in warm, humid conditions. These seeds are fine outside in the snow and rain, so long as it is not too cold. Zone 7, -10°F is about their lower limit. I suspect the Atlantic Botanic Garden greenhouse where the seedling germinated is cool, not warm. 

This extraordinary Pacific Coast iris and its offspring continue to deliver surprises in its Atlanta, Georgia home.

(Still) Searching for Iris innominata

 by Kathleen Sayce

A conversation with a lapsed and now renewed member of Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris (SPCNI) reminded me of my long search for Iris innominata by seed and plant form for my own garden.

I. innominata x ? in my garden

In 2010, I joined the SPCNI field trip to southwest Oregon, where I was able to see tens of thousands of Pacifica irises flowering in the wild, including thousands of I. innominata. Flower colors varied from pale yellow to intense, dark golden yellow, almost orange, with veining from dark yellow to red. This spurred me to grow this lovely iris in my own garden.

I. innominata in Southwest Oregon, 2010

The search for I. innominata plants or seeds began innocuously. As a new member of SPCNI, I ordered seeds from the SPCNI annual seed exchange. I also ordered from SIGNA’s seed exchange. Plants were purchased from a variety of sources in the western United States. All were labeled I. innominata. 

Meanwhile I read about Iris x aureonympha ‘Golden Nymph’, an early garden cross between I. douglasiana and I. innominata by Edith Hardin English in her Seattle, Washington garden. She liked the golden flowers but disliked the short stems and the ease with which flowers melted in heavy rain, sentiments with which I completely agree! 

 The SIGNA Checklist of Hybrids described Iris x aureonympha ‘Golden Nymph’ as “Soft golden yellow flower with veining reduced to markings of deeper yellow, two flowers to each stem." The name was published as I. aureonympha ‘Golden Nymph’ in the National Horticulture Magazine, October 1948, and reprinted in the Bulletin of the American Iris Society, p. 40-42, #125, April 1952.” [page 146, SIGNA Checklists of Iris] The article was reprinted in the Almanac for SPCNI, Spring 1977 with a note by Jean Witt that English was the first person in the Unied States to hybridize I. innominata. Note that all PCI species easily hybridize with each other, so wild crosses between I. douglasiana and I. innominata are likely, as both live in Southwest Oregon. 

But I digress—back to the outcome of my search through seed exchanges and nurseries for I. innominata: 

Three times the plants I purchased turned out to be I. douglasiana or other Pacifica iris selections, none matching I. innominata for plant habit and leaf characters even when flowers were (rarely) yellow. I retained a lovely I. douglasiana x unknown PCI cross with a sturdy short grow habit, of unregistered name ‘Burnt Sugar.’

I. pseudacorus sold as I. innominata. Not!

Four times the seeds also were not I. innominata, and tended to undistinguished lavenders. The most spectacular fails were two: A plant from a rock garden nursery that was actually I. pseudacorus, identified when it flowered, and a seed lot that grew into Spuria irises of unknown flower color but unmistakable growth form. My garden is too cool and dry in summer for spurias to thrive, so out it went.

Iris 'Burnt Sugar', unregistered Pacifica iris with I. douglasiana genes

Debby Cole took pity on me after a few years and sent me a few seeds from one of her yellow-flowered innominata-like plants, which upon flowering from seed in my yard we concluded were most likely to be I. innominata x I. bracteata. These had short stems, yellow flowers and the narrow dark green leaves of I. innominata. The veins on the falls were reddish brown. 

Another I. innominata x ? grown from seed 

The plants lived for years in my garden, flowering well until a hedge grew up that shaded them a bit too much. If I can find them this fall, I intend to move the plants to the wild lawn at Willapa National Wildlife Refuge in a few weeks, in hopes that they will enjoy that locale. The trigger for this remembrance was that newly returned SPCNI member casually mentioning that he grows I. innominata in his own garden. All I can say is he’s lucky. I haven’t managed to get it, let alone grow it!

Iris douglasiana in Atlanta, Georgia? Oh My!

Kathleen Sayce, April 6, 2021 

   In the current issue of the Rock Garden Quarterly, North American Rock Garden Society (www.nargs.org), Raleigh Wasser, horticulture manager, writes about a rock garden at Atlanta Botanical Garden (atlantabg.org). Heat, summer rain, and humidity are inevitable in this location, thus this rock garden is a test area, not for alpine plants from around the world, but for tough plants that demonstrate rock garden style, in Raleigh’s words “creating alpine vistas at sea level.” 

Raleigh likes irises, (sensible woman), and writes about irids that do well at ABG, including several Sisyrinchium species, Alophia drummondii, Herbertia lahue ssp. lahue, Iris pumila, and Iris douglasiana. I read that paragraph several times, then wrote the editor of RGQ to ask Raleigh for details about the last species.

I. douglasiana flower, photo from 
Raleigh Wasser, ABG

The Iris douglasiana selection came from Garden in the Woods (www.nativeplanttrust.org ) in 1993, and was a tiny grassy tuft of leaves when Raleigh started at ABG. In the past few years it has grown and bloomed. I asked if it has set seed, and have not heard back. Raleigh sent me a few photos, and yes, the flower details in the photo show this is clearly an Iris douglasiana type PCI. 

This was confirmed with several SPCNI members who grow, hybridize and judge PCI, Bob Sussman, Garry Knipe, and Debby Cole. 

The miracle is that it grows in Atlanta at all. 

Boulders in the rock garden are from midtown Atlanta, 1989, from a building excavation. The soil is sand mixed with local red clay and topped with pea gravel. 

Iris douglasiana label and foliage
at Atlanta Botanical Garden. Photo 
from Raleigh Wasser, ABG

Slopes are 15 to 30 degrees. This long arc of rock and well drained soil faces south-southeast. Atlanta is zone 8a, with 52 inches of rain per year, hot humid summers and cold winters. 

So, by chance, this rock garden has neutral to acidic soil, the soil is well drained, and has a very tough I. douglasiana species-type selection that can weather the humidity and year round precipitation. I would not have bet money this could happen, but it has. 

Irisarians, from beyond the regions where PCI naturally grow, take heart from this success:  Excellent drainage in neutral to acidic soil, summer rainfall, and a tough PCI all came together to thrive in a Georgia rock garden. This environment provided just enough of the right conditions. 

For more on growing PCI, check the SPCNI website’s gardening information at http://www.pacificcoastiris.org/gardeniris_introduction.html, which offers tips for climates outside the West Coast. 

Thank you to Raleigh for writing about ABG and including comments on irises. 

 

Cords and Ropes from Pacifica Iris Leaves

Kathleen Sayce

January 27, 2018

For a change of pace, I’ve been making iris leaf cordage, using a simple three strand twist of dead Iris douglasiana leaves. Using fine thin leaves, this works up quickly into cord. The leaves are individually twisted counterclockwise and then wrapped clockwise around the other two twists. These cords are twisted together or braided to make stronger ropes. This method is widespread in Europe and North America as a way to make cords from many plant species, including nettles, milkweed, flax and other plants.

A few feet of Pacifica Iris leaf cordage, made in an hour from brown leaves
from Iris douglasiana. Note the lumpy area on the right where I twisted in a
larger leaf. Next time, I'll split the leaves into uniform widths first. 

Harvesting Pacifica Iris leaves when they have just turned brown probably gives a stronger cord. I went out this winter between rain squalls to get dead leaves, and quickly focused on thin, still-strong leaves of Iris douglasiana selections like Iris ‘Mission Santa Cruz’. I have several larger leaved selections, so could make larger cords from those leaves. 

Something to remember for next fall —harvest iris leaves at the right time, between loss of green in fall and subsequent decay in late winter. Clean and dry, the leaves can be stored for months, then soaked in water to prepare to twist. 

Iris douglasiana leaves before twisting into cordage. They were already damp,
so did not need a presoaking in water to soften before using.

West Coast tribes in northern California made rope from Pacifica Iris leaf fibers. Leaves were harvested from late summer into fall, wilted, then split and scraped to remove a strong fiber, one from each side of the leaf. Fibers were rolled and twisted into fine cord, then multiple cords  were twisted together to make strong light ropes. Strong lines to trap deer and elk were made from those ropes. The processing that went into removing and cleaning the fibers, then twisting into cordage, then wrapping cords to make rope, and making nets from the rope, was considerable. Read more about this method here:  http://www.paleotechnics.com/Articles/Irisarticle.html .

Irises, including all Pacifica Iris, have the same strong fibers in their leaves. Years ago the general iris leaf structure of two outer layers of leaf linked by fibrous cross walls was compared to a I-beam--creating a strong, flexible leaf. The authors looked at dozens of species in many iris sections, and while the cross-beams changed a bit in shape, the basic plan did not, across all species they examined. If you have access to a college library, look for "Structure and mechanics of the iris leaf", Journal of Materials Science, vol 23, pages 3041-3048, by L. J. Gibson, M.F. Ashby and K.E. Easterling, published in 1988.

Iris douglaisana, I. macrosiphon, I. purdyi and natural hybrids of these species seem to contain the right vein structure in their leaves, with two larger veins running up the outside edges. I suspect this is because they tend to have larger leaves. 

The thin end, made from fine leaves.

During dry moments this winter, I also collected long green leaves from several Pacifica Iris plants to see if there are usable fibers in them. It’s a little late in the year, but on the West Coast, this winter has been mild and wet, and iris leaves are still green. As with other fiber-containing species, longer iris leaves produce longer fibers, which spin more easily into cordage. Now I wonder what the leaf fibers are like in Iris unguicularis, I. lazica, ornamental Carex, milkweed, and Diplorrhena. 

A closeup of the three-leaf cord, showing natural color variation
in brown Pacifica Iris leaves. 

It’s a slippery slope from playing with natural cordage to spinning your own yarn, I understand, and I’m hoping to not be enticed into another hobby just yet. My goal is to garden as long as I can, and only then retire to less taxing hobbies. 

Developing New Pacifica Iris Hybrids

Kathleen Sayce

January 1, 2017

This could be titled the Frustrations of Developing New Hybrids. 

The current issue of Pacific Iris came out two weeks ago, and it includes sadness:  well-known irisarian Jean Witt died in 2016. Jean cast a very long shadow over many decades of iris breeding, including PCI and wide crosses between PCI and Sibiricae species. This issue celebrates her life, including decades of her work hybridizing, guiding generations of irisarians, and looks at the future of iris hybridization from the viewpoint of several current growers.

The last time we spoke, Jean told me that the world of iris breeding is still wide open. As much has been done, we have only scratched the surface, she said. New patterns, new colors, and new genetic crosses await us. 

My own perspective has changed greatly over the years that I’ve been growing PCI. I began with the desire to grow sturdy plants with flowers in a rainbow of pure colors in an ever widening range of flowering months. Local climate constraints [growing on the coast of the Pacific Northwest] became clear over several frustrating years of failed crosses, and even lack of seed set on open pollinated flowers during particularly wet springs. This reality led me to rethink breeding goals. I started other beardless Iris species from seed, with a goal of wide crosses with PCI. Several of those plants immediately picked up a virus, so out they went. It was time for rethinking. 

Iris tenax in the garden, grown from seed and showcasing the sturdy flowers, held well above leaves and in this case, with nicely rounded petals. 

I offer my modified goals here, as we enter winter in the northern hemisphere. 

Goal One: Well-shaped flowers that don’t melt in the rain. 
The pale yellows I developed a few years ago have fragile flowers. One good rainstorm, and the petals are gone. White and other pale flower colors often have the same issue. Richard Richards’ very sturdy white-flowered hybrids from southern California, bred for heat tolerance and long summer droughts, hold up to my local rain. Largely ruffly flowers with wide petals and abundant frills also tend to do badly in wet weather, as do most flat dinner-plate type petals. I have a new appreciation every wet spring for those narrow, sturdy falls on species PCI that bend down rather than out. 

Floppy pods! Snails and slugs may chew on the pods when they are flat on the ground. 

Goal Two: Flowering stems that stand up and flex in high winds, and hold their seed pods up, weeks later.  
While stems that flop over undoubtedly help with seed dispersal in nature; in the garden, this makes it hard to find and collect seeds. I started with green organza bags to enclose pods, only to find that they vanish in the garden, sometimes for years. Brightly colored bags do better, but upright stems are better still. 

One of the sturdiest PCI in the coastal garden is this dwarf Iris douglaisana selection. The flowers are plain, and yes, this one stands up to rain and wind nicely. 

Goal Three: Plants that are strong, vigorous, and sturdy, with a variety of heights. 
Too many current hybrids are all the same size. Historically, PCI had very short plants, well under 12 inches (25 cm) in height, as well as tall plants, more than 30 inches high (76 cm). Bring back the full range of heights! I’m now selecting, as much as I can, for taller, stronger plants. Each climate has its own constraints and opportunities, and in my climate, sturdiness is an important goal. 

An I. douglasiana selection from Cape Blanco, Oregon, has plain lavender flowers on sturdy stems, and is taller than most PCI. 

As for colors? Ha. I’ll take what I can get, to get started on the next century of PCI hybrids. It's back to the drawing board for me. Jean is right:  the field is wide open for new irises of all kinds.  

Dry Summers, Summer Water and Pacifica Iris

Kathleen Sayce

Pacifica Iris, or PCI, thrive in a mediterranean climate––that’s a small ‘m’ for the climate, not the geographic area. This climate type has a wet fall-winter-spring period, with rain starting in early fall to winter, and ending in late winter to late spring, depending on latitude. In the Pacific Northwest, cool wet weather can last from six to ten months, and very dry weather (no measurable precipitation) two to six months. Most years, the August-September period is very dry. Going south on the West Coast, the wet season shrinks until in southern California, it lasts a few weeks in midwinter, and the dry season lasts most of the year. 

Iris chrysophylla x I. douglasiana, a large leaved, branched flowered form that flowers in June. 

It’s August now, and that means the West Coast is well into the annual dry season, from northern Baja California, Mexico to somewhere along the British Columbia coast. My garden is dry, and I’ve started supplemental water to some plants, but my PCI do not get supplemental water. The last of the PCI are ripening seeds, most have already open seed pods, and they are toughing out the dry season in a warm dormancy. Roots are not growing. These irises wait out the dry weather.

Seed pods from the same plant as above, 2 months later. 

I could clean up plants at this time, but I have learned that if the dry season is prolonged, then PCI will abandon more leaves, and I’ll have to take those leaves off later. So I limit my cleanup to removing vigorous weeds, dead plants, and any plants I want to remove from a particular spot. There’s no replanting this time of year. Plants that are dug out now will not reestablish if replanted. If I were watering regularly, I might be able to transplant in a few weeks. 

On watering PCI in summer, opinions are mixed. Some say no water at all. Many  nursery growers have found that PCI are fine with regular summer watering. As Secretary for the Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris, I’ve been offered many opinions from members all over the world on this subject, and have concluded that PCI do not like hot, alkaline water. Cool, neutral to acidic water is fine. I prefer not to drag hoses or sprinklers, so I do not water them, though my plants would probably be bigger and have more flowers if I did supply water all summer. 

Iris tenax, flowering mid June, on one of the last rainy days of the year. 

Late summer is a curious time in the garden:  Flowers are still abundant on many perennial and annual plants, which will keep flowering with supplemental water into fall. Butterflies make the rounds on warm days, feeding on those flowers. The end of second flight of Anise Swallowtails is still underway. Margined White butterflies are on their fourth or fifth adult generation for the year. Soon, the occasional south-migrating Monarch butterfly may pass through. Even these plants are shedding leaves, setting seed, getting ready for summer’s end. Meanwhile, fall flowering bulbs and perennials are starting to show buds and first flowers. 

The clear signal that fall is coming is birds migrating south. I live on a large estuary, Willapa Bay, where tens of thousands of shorebirds, ducks and other waterfowl fly through each fall. Shorebird numbers are picking up from week to week. Bald Eagles fledged their chicks; the adults will leave by September for inland rivers, to fish for fall migrating salmon. I hear the fledgling eagles call for their parents by mid August, looking for those formerly attentive parents.

New visitors, two Indian peacocks, check out the flower beds. The turquoise, silver and blue eyes in the tail feathers would make a striking PCI flower.  

 This week, there was a new bird species in the yard. It’s not migratory, and yes, it is introduced. Two Indian peacocks wandered into the yard. Sightings have traveled up and down the bay for several miles this summer, and this week, it was our turn for a visit. The editor of our bulletin asked me a few weeks ago about my hybridizing goals for PCI. A PCI with the brilliance of a peacock’s tail seems a very worthy goal!

Pacifica Irises in Snow

By Kathleen Sayce

Written February 17, 2014

I started growing Pacifica Iris more than fifteen years ago, when the West Coast was in a warmer, drier weather cycle, so it took several years for my plants to experience even a little snow. In the past few years, a few snow days each winter have been more common than not, so I can now report knowledgeably on what happens to Pacificas in the snow.

Iris chrysantha under light snowfall

First, some species in my garden, including Iris hartwegii ssp. australis, I thompsonii and I. tenax, normally go completely dormant. In warmer snow-free years, they may or may not brown down until February. It's not uncommon for all of these species to keep green leaves for most of the winter, and then in early March, suddenly the old battered but still greenish leaves vanish, and a few weeks later the small, stubby new leaves appear.

Now add snow to the mix, even just a few days, and wham, the leaves brown off, and the plants vanish from the surface.

The second group, of species, includes Iris innominata, I. chrysophylla and I. douglasiana, and also hybrids, hangs on and keeps some green leaves all winter long, though those leaves can look pretty battered, and many are browning off, by late February. Hybrid Pacificas are a mix of many species, largely from around the Bay Area of the central California coast and nearby mountains. These tend to have more I. douglasiana genes, which is a sturdy evergreen species with large leaves.

Iris 'Cape Ferrelo' under light snowfall.

So the hybrids stay evergreen, come snow, hail, ice storms or torrential rains.

These traits, evergreen leaves or not, and a tendency to go fully dormant in snow or not, have helped me sort out the likely genetics of Pacificas that may come to a gardener without a label, or with an erroneous one. I. douglasiana and I. innomnata have durable evergreen leaves; I. douglasiana leaves tend to be thicker, longer, and wider, while I. innominata leaves tend to be a very dark green, narrower, and shorter.

Seedling Pacifica Iris emerging from snow in the garden.

My I. hartwegii ssp. australis plants were grown from seeds collected by a SPCNI member, Richard Richards, who lives in southern California. The first winter they experienced snow, I sent Richard a photo to show the plants well buried in white stuff. He wrote back that there was a drought that winter in the San Bernardino Mtns, and these plants might be the happiest individuals of that species anywhere on the West Coast that year. This was the first year that I noticed just how differently Pacificas go dormant under snow.

Iris hartwegii ssp. australis emerging from snow cover. 

The last photo in this post is a Pacifica iris that was labeled I. innominata 'Burnt Sugar' when I bought it many years ago. The leaves are too wide and long to be solely I. innominata, which is the mostly likely species based on flower color. There's not a hint of dormancy when ice storms and snow arrive. This one has some I. douglasiana genes too. By the fairly narrow falls and standards, it is not too far from a yellow-flowered species selection, and is not a modern hybrid. ['Burnt Sugar' is not a registered name] Thanks to an industrious Steller Jay, the original tag, including source, is long gone.

Iris 'Burnt Sugar', an unregistered selection, in full flower. 

Knowing now how Pacifica species behave in snow, it's clear that 'Burnt Sugar' has both I. douglasiana and I. innominata genes, hence the lovely yellow color with red veining on a sturdy plant with dark green leaves, and no sign of dying back under snow. 

To learn more about these irises and others, visit SIGNA, the Species Iris Group of North America's website.