New sloping bed and fall transplanting

Kathleen Sayce

A multi-year planting plan is coming together for fall on a dune west of my house. It began four years ago with systematic ivy removal and suppression, and continued despite the pandemic. This summer, with ivy and blackberries suppressed, remnants of an old orchard were cut down and chipped. I left 4 tall stumps about 8 feet high for future vines. The site is finally ready to plant, with a nice pile of wood chips staged to spread out. 

I’ve been hoarding Pacifica iris plants for more than three years. These are a mix of unnamed vigorous seedlings, named cultivars, seedlings from same, and species seedlings—Iris tenax collections from various places in the Pacific Northwest, or color selections from Paul Rogers, who is working on named lines in a range of colors in this species. I also have a few pots of Iris innominata seedlings.

One of the stashes of PCI pots, waiting for fall

Other plants include Pacific reedgrass (Calamagrostis nutkensis), western sword fern (Polystichum munitum), several Ceanothus species and varieties, some low growing manzanitas (Arctostaphylos), and perennial wildflowers. 

The new planting area is on a sloping dune facing east, has a slope break (where the dune gets steeper) about ten to fifteen feet downslope. Ceanothus and manzanita will go in a meandering line along the slope break,  with grasses and ferns above and below, and irises in between in color patches, each plant about two feet apart. 

An unnamed yellow PCI with red and gold signal, ready to be planted this fall.

Columbine, bleeding heart, yarrow, broadleaf lupine, California poppy and other wildflowers will be planted or seeded over the slope. Fringecups (Tellima grandiflora) will go in shadier areas. This native saxifrage is a great filler in planters, with lime green foliage. 

As with most of my garden, this new area will get low to no irrigation. I will add compost and wood chip mulch as surface layers. By planting in fall, as the weather cools and rains begin, initial watering will be minimal, and thereafter, only in extremely dry hot events for the first 2-3 years. 

Dark pink PCI with gold and very dark signal. This group has PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' heritage.

Gardeners often have angst-ridden thoughts about new planting areas, and I am no exception. Eik and deer spend a fair amount of time in my yard, and I worry that they will find all those new plants tasty, and eat them down, or so annoying that they pull them out. Rosemary falls into the latter category—elk regularly trample my rosemary, breaking down the branches. I prune them and reshape them; the elk trample them again. I may end up with rosemary near my house and nowhere else in the garden! A naturalist friend says elk are determined landscape engineers, and pull out or trample the plants they don’t want to make room for the ones they do.  

My goal is a colorful, low to no water slope of mostly native plants, with shrubs for the Spotted Towhees, and enough ground cover for white and gold crown sparrows and other ground nesting birds. We’ll see what the deer and elk think of this!

More Seacliff Irises

by Kathleen Sayce

I've posted several notes over the years about wild Iris tenax populations on the coasts of southern Washington and northern Oregon. Today I have photos of I. tenax from a new location. These plants grow on cliffs southeast of the Neahkahnie sea cliffs meadow population and aren't more than a half mile from that lovely meadow. Like that meadow, they grow on Miocene basalt cliffs several hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean. I saw more than ten clumps, battling agoraphobia to hang over the retaining wall to look for flowering plants. 

Iris tenax flowering on a basalt ledge over the Pacific Ocean

A report of a Canyon Wren, more than a hundred miles from its normal range in north Tillamook County, Oregon, brought me to this location, via eBird and a local WhatsApp birding group. I heard two partial trills, and one full song. Traffic on Highway 101 wiped out more than two-thirds of the listening time. No good views of this wren, sorry to say.

Pacific Ocean in background on a sunny, mild day

This I. tenax population has dark pink-lavender flowers with wide petals. It has persisted in my garden for years, and seeds occasionally make their way to the SPCNI seed catalog, open in December and January each year. Getting closer to these cliff-growing plants requires climbing gear!

The image below is of flowering irises from the nearby meadow, growing in my garden. These were grown from wild-collected seed. 

Iris tenax flowers, grown from the Neahkahnie sea cliff population

Other wildflowers in bloom on the cliffs include crevice alumroot (Heuchera micrantha), spring gold (Lomatium martindalei), hairy checkermallow (Sidalcea hirtipes) and giant Indian paintbrush (Castilleja miniata). That small slice of blue water in the middle image says it all: it was a lovely day on the Pacific Ocean. 

Iris tenax - A wild population in Thurston County, WA

by Mike Unser

While exploring trails and State wildlife preserves in my local area several years ago, I found a wild population of Iris tenax, our local species in the Pacific Coast Iris family. I'd seen this species in the area before, but it was always in open grasslands and prairie preserves. Clumps of irises were growing along a shaded maintenance road and in open spaces with higher moisture content than open prairie lands provide.

Beside the road I. tenax seemed to be happily growing with little direct sunlight and competing with woodland. The clumps were open and not as dense as those found in full sun. Stalks tended to be more vertical and less arching.

The foliage was narrow and grass-like.

The blooms ranged in shade from lighter to darker in tones of orchid pink thru lavender, often with yellow signal markings and lighter fall lines. I caught a white clump blooming once but have not seen it since.

The flowers had flaring petals and enough waving on the falls to make the tips appear pointed. Quite a charming wildflower.

Further down the road the area opens out a bit and the woods recede to the edges of the clearing where  homes once stood. I am guessing they housed people working at the munitions factories in the area during the great wars of the early 20th century. Both homes and factories are long gone, but remnants of them can be found if you keep a sharp eye out.

The open areas are mowed every few years to keep the invasive Scotch broom down. This doesn't seem to harm the irises.

Some have deeper more intense colors to catch the eye.

There were even some very short ones blooming in the middle of the road.

This last one is my favorite. It was a very silvery-toned lilac. Quite unique in the population. I marked it and later scavenged a few seeds from which I have managed to get a single plant growing in the garden. Hoping it retains that unique color. We'll find out next spring. Now if that white one would just turn up again. Would love to get seed from it as well.

  

Where The Wild irises Are—A New Wild Lawn

by Kathleen Sayce

Inspiration can come from unexpected directions. Last spring a friend—who lives up a valley about an hour away—sent me photos of irises flowering in the fields around her home. She was looking for plant identification, which I was pleased to supply—these are wild Iris tenax, growing in northeast Pacific County, Washington. Curiously, there are no herbarium specimens for this species in this county, but they grow wild by the thousands here all the same. 

Why was I looking for inspiration? A group of volunteers (horticulturists and ecologists) put together a planting plan for the new headquarters landscape at Willapa National Wildlife Refuge, which is also in Pacific County. 

To the left, Iris tenax growing wild in a pasture, Willapa Valley, photo by Megan Martin.

This is a summer-dry climate, so getting the plants off to the right start is critical, and fall planting is the first step. 

The property has irrigation water available; a storm last week added a couple of inches of rain while putting out wildfires to the east in the Cascades, and ending the dry season. Site access was held up by delays in road rebuilding for several weeks—the new road is finally going in right now, about four weeks later than planned. 

These delays mean that instead of including images of the newly planted and seeded wild lawn, we have images of plants ready to place, and local wild Iris tenax from the nearby valley— the inspiration for this new landscape. 

To the right, a few dozen I. tenax clumps in a pasture, photo by Megan Martin.

The design goal is all native plants, low maintenance, with low watering needs, in a visually pleasing layout. Shrub borders and trees were easy to design, but the wild lawn needed a focus. Armed with new images of fields of irises and other wildflowers among grasses, we had the inspiration we needed. 

The site is being prepared right now for planting. We will plant numerous wildflowers, with an emphasis on irises, including I. tenax, I. douglasiana and a few hybrids, along with yarrow, field checkermallow, goldenrod, pearly everlasting, Douglas aster, and other perennials. Chocolate lilies, camas and Columbia lily are some of the bulbs that are native to this area.  The grass matrix will be a mix of low growing fescues, including red and Roemer’s fescues. 

Above, I. tenax growing with daisies, bracken-fern and grasses in a pasture, photo by Megan Martin. 

The wild lawn will be mown once a year, in fall, and after the first year, will not be watered in summer. Fall mowing means we will be able to collect and spread seed on the site to continue to distribute irises around the wild lawn, which covers more than 20,000 square feet. The budget did not have room for the 1000s of plants we needed, so we will start with a few hundred iris, and spread their seeds around to expand the planting. 

Above, a few pots of iris, freshly planted last spring, photo by Kelly Rupp.

There will be some spot management of blackberries and other woody perennials as the lawn settles into its new configuration, on what was formerly a farm homestead surrounded by coastal forest at the south end of Willapa Bay, Pacific County, Washington. We expect it to take about three years to settle in. 

Looking upslope at the wild lawn along the view corridor--the iris+fescue area will be near the building. Photo by Todd Wiegardt. 

Check back next year for an update on this wild lawn.

Photos for this blog were contributed by Megan Martin, Kelly Rupp and Todd Wiegardt. 

 

Wild Iris tenax on Seacliffs in Northwest Oregon

By Kathleen Sayce

Iris tenax grows on mountains in northwest Oregon, including Saddle Mountain, Clatsop County, Oregon. This species is usually found on south facing slopes along the main trail and in meadows with wild cucumber, native grasses, paintbrush, and other wildflowers. It also  grows on seacliffs in several locations in Clatsop County. These locations are in state parks, Ecola and Oswald West, and are as far north as I. tenax grows on the coast. 

This plant has narrow falls that are mostly lavender towards the tip with a large yellow signal and smallish white patch. 

North of Clatsop County, this species grows in the Coast Range and Willapa Hills, in the Chehalis lowlands south of Olympia and east of Montesano, WA, and in the Cascade Range. But it does not grow along the coast north of the Columbia River. 

Seacliffs are one of the harshest environments plants can endure. They must tolerate high winds, salt water, salty air, winter wet conditions, high summer temperatures, prolonged drought, and erosion. The ability of any plant to withstand this combination of chemistry, wind, moisture levels and temperatures is amazing. 

This plant had the widest falls and standards, and a deeper pink-lavender color. Both falls and standards were wider than on other plants. 

Visiting these hardy plants is one of my annual pilgrimages. Like the departing Brant geese and returning swallows, seeking out wild Iris tenax when in flower is an activity that says “Spring.” 

A few years ago, I found a population of about five plants on the seacliffs above Manzanita, Oregon. These tenacious cliff-dwellers had larger flowers, and leaves that were easily twice the size of all the other I. tenax plants in this area. Seeds and a small fragment came to my own garden, where they thrive, and from which I collect seeds regularly for the SPCNI seed exchange. 

This Iris tenax plant had moderately narrow falls, and larger lighter colored areas. Standards were lavender; style arms were much paler, almost white. 

But remember erosion? As of my last visit in 2018, the block of eroding rock and meadow that this population lives on had slumped so much it is no longer safe to even climb down to get closeup photos of the flowers. It will be gone soon, reclaimed by the Pacific Ocean.

This large clump had a tiny yellow signal with a larger white patch around it, and moderately wide falls. Flowers are darker as they open, so I was careful to compare colors among flowers at the same stage 

This week I went back to see the plants in Ecola State Park. Two trails that passed by several populations of Iris tenax are closed due to landslides on the seacliffs. One trail is left that takes in a few plants, and these were flowering. They were still flowering two weeks later when I led a native plants group out to see them. The trail winds up a south-facing, exposed and eroding cliff face, so while these plants will be here for a few more years, in geologic time their fate is already clear:  they too will enter the Pacific Ocean very soon. 

The view along the trail to the northwest, with "Terrible Tilly", former Tillamook Head lighthouse, in the middle left. Note eroding cliffs along the headland.

Diversity in flower shape and color is generally based on where plants grow relative to their larger population. Outlier populations (on the edges) tend to be less diverse, and plants within a main population tend to be more diverse. All the photos in this article were taken at this one site near Indian Beach, and you can see the diversity of shape in petals, and in range of flower colors. From this residual diversity, we may conclude that many iris plants that formerly lived along this shoreline have already fallen into the ocean. 

But, Iris tenax still lives along the seacliffs today, and is flowering. Life is good. 

The World of Irises is the official blog of The American Iris Society. Now in its 99^th year, The American Iris Society exists to promote all types of irises. If you wish to comment on a post, you can do so at the end of the page and the author or the editors will reply. If you wish to learn more about The American Iris Society, follow the link.

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!

Phenology of Pacifica Iris during Climate Shifts

Kathleen Sayce

Phenology, or the study of what condition plants are in (onset of growth, vegetative, pre-flowering, flowering, seed set, dormancy) at what date during the year, is fascinating to track during climate shifts. No, I’m not talking about climate change, but about regular weather cycles on the West Coast of North America. 

Iris tenax, wild collected seed from sea cliffs by Manzanita, Oregon, was flowering in June, and now has numerous pods. 

There are several regular cycles that last six months to twenty months or so: 

First, the familiar one–– the annual season, which cycles every year through winter, spring, summer, fall. 

Second, El Niño-Southern Oscillation Events, ENSOs. In the popular press, these are called El Niño, which bring warmer than usual weather to the Pacific Northwest, and range from dry to wet weather in winter depending on ENSO intensity and latitude on the West Coast. California often gets much wetter winters during ENSO events. 

ENSOs alternate with two other weather states over the Pacific Ocean. The other two are La Niña events and ‘neutral conditions’. La Niña events bring colder than normal weather to the West Coast, and neutral conditions in the Pacific are just that, not strongly warmer or colder. These three states of weather over the Pacific Ocean impact weather around the world. The National Weather Service posts intermediate to long term forecasts which can help us see what is coming over the next few seasons. 

Third, there is also a longer weather cycle, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which typically lasts twenty to twenty one years, warm and dry or cold and wet. In the warm and dry state, the Pacific Northwest has less rain, salmon populations fall as fewer fish reach streams to breed, and ocean conditions are poor for their growth and survival. Snowpacks are reduced in the mountains. At the same time, Alaska and northern British Columbia get the opposite, more rain and cold weather. The flip side is cold and wet in the Pacific Northwest, and warmer and drier to the north. 

I. douglasiana X I. chrysophylla has sturdy spikes with multiple flowers, on a tall plant that grows in dense clumps. I'm planning to divide this one at the next garden redo. 

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation flipped to warm and dry in the Northwest last year, with a strong ENSO event on top of it. We had a long dry summer last year, bracketed by two wet winters. This year saw average snowpack form, but it melted early as the weather warmed. 

What does this mean for Pacifica Iris in northwest gardens?  Flowering begins earlier, progresses faster, and is over earlier in the summer. Pollinators are often out of step with the bloom times, so seed set can be reduced on open pollinated plants, especially for those that are early flowering. 

Grown from SPCNI seeds, this late flowering PCI has unknown parentage, but often flowers into June. Flowers are species like, small and numerous on a medium-sized plant. 

During cool springs and cool to cold weather cycles, Pacifica Iris start flowering in April, peak in May, and continue into July, some years to mid July. During warm dry weather, iris begin flowering in March, peak in April, and are done by early June. This is months later than southern California gardens, and trails northern California by at least six weeks. 

The last Pacifica Iris to flower are a sturdy handful, including two species crosses and a local species. Those lovely frilly hybrids are long past when these irises start to flower. 

Iris tenax from Saddle Mountain, Oregon, also has nice rose-purple flowers.

Iris tenax from Saddle Mountain and the sea cliffs near Manzanita, Oregon, generally starts in May and finishes in June, with rose-purple flowers. 

A cross between I. douglasiana X I. chrysophylla with tall stems and flower spikes, and small dark purple flowers [seed from SPCNI several years ago] is one of my favorite May to June flowering clumps. 

Another cross between I. tenax X I. innominata also from SPCNI, flowers in May and June, and can be stunningly floriferous in cool wet years. I have white, pink-veined, and lavender clumps of this cross. 

Dwarf I. douglasiana is still flowering in late June. Also the slowest to ripen pods, I'll be collecting seeds in September from these plants. 

The last to flower, still in bloom in July most years, is a dwarf I. douglasiana, typically less than twelve inches tall, with sturdy short stems and lavender flowers. This also came from the SPCNI seed exchange, donated by Diane Whitehead from her garden in Victoria, British Columbia. 

Today as I checked the garden [too many weeds getting ahead of me already, ugh] I saw few to no pods on the early flowering irises, but the late flowering irises had many fat buds, already ripening seeds. 

With warm dry weather in store for the next couple of decades, I think it’s time to focus on these late flowering plants for the next generation of new Pacifica Iris in my garden.