Finding the Goldilocks Zone for Pacifica Iris

June 19, 2018

Kathleen Sayce

Pacifica Iris are like Goldilocks when it comes to growing conditions:   Not too wet, not too dry, not too cold, and not too hot. Soils should be mildly acidic and well drained, with ample carbon and mulch. Avoid at all cost the combination of humid hot weather and warm alkaline water—plants will be toes up in days if they experience these conditions. Despite this, we have brave gardeners in summer-hot climates who continue to experiment with this fussy iris. 

Iris tenax in the garden; grown from seed in a protected styrofoam container

Water preferences:  Cool temperatures in summer, and slightly acidic at all times.  Not warm, never alkaline.  Established plants tolerate drought, but this statement hides the reality that in their native climates, Pacifica Iris have deep roots and cool root runs despite long dry summers. When in doubt, water more than less. 

Bare styrofoam--it does work, but it's fragile; this planter houses PCI seedlings for Garry Knipe's cross climate/cross continent experiment. 

Light:  Varies with temperature—the hotter the climate, the deeper the shade for this fussy group.  SPCNI members in Idaho, Arizona and Texas have grown Pacifica Iris for at least a few years by mulching, planting under roof overhangs, watering in summer, and arranging deeper and deeper shade as summer heat builds up. They also expect to grow new plants from seed whenever an extremely hot summer wipes out all their Pacifica Iris. 

Soils:  Moderately acidic, well drained, never soggy or saturated. Good carbon levels help promote soil fungi, which are probably key partners in keeping these irises happy. Carbon can be biochar, compost, or decomposing wood chips. 

Painted styrofoam:  The color is less obnoxious than white, but it is slowly wearing away, and the planter is only slightly less fragile.

Mulch:  Shredded bark or wood chips, or gravel. I use granite gravel, AKA chicken grit, to top all pots and planters, which helps keep seeds off the surface, soil from flying around in heavy rain, and slows down birds and rodents determined to eat iris seeds. 

Pots:  Like many gardeners, I began with dark colored plastic pots for growing plants from seeds. Lightweight, stackable, easy to store and reuse, it took me too many years to discover their drawbacks. Lightweight—they heat up quickly, soils dry out quickly, and roots heat too. 

Styrofoam containers followed, and the results were wonderful. Roots are cooler, plants are happier. But these materials are fragile, easily damaged by pecking, chewing, or as I learned when we had danger trees removed, by having large tree-like objects dropped on them. 

Styrofoam with epoxy cement coating, patched in two corners (upper right, lower left):  this planter survived a tree falling on it, and after patching, went to housing Iris hartwegii australis, which is happier under house eaves than in the garden. 

Treatments were tried to protect the soft surface, including:   

1. Paint, using various colors to make rock-like objects, as Ian Young and others in the Scottish Rock Garden Club have done). 

2. Epoxy concrete patch, mixed in small batches and troweled on thickly, mimicking rocks. This works well enough that the planter that did have a falling tree dropped on it was resurrected with additional patching material, and now houses a happy Iris hartwegii australis. 

3. Not yet tried—painting on cement, or troweling on hypertufa mix.

Hypertufa planter with PCI seedlings--the best solution so far.

4. Then came hypertufa planters, which are made with various combinations of perlite, cement, water, and peat / coir/ compost, or minus any organic material, and using a variety of containers as forms. Joseph Tychonievich, editor, The Rock Garden Quarterly, wrote an article about the wide variation in recipes for hypertufa in the Winter 2017/2018 issue. 

It’s my new favorite material for planters. Irises/lilies/crocus/tigridias/brodiaeas love it. Cool roots; never soggy, not even in 11 inches of rain in 8 hours; not too cold in winter, nor warm in summer. Tougher than styrofoam, and porous, so roots are well aerated. It’s also easy to make those important wire mesh covers to keep voles and jays off the seeds and tiny seedlings. 

Now, all I need is the time to make 50+ new planters!

Pondering Pacifica Iris and Voles

Kathleen Sayce 

January 27, 2018

It is winter, and for the coastal Pacific Northwest, this means sleeting rain with the occasional snow shower, hail shower, thunderstorm, high winds, and flooding. Bottom line:  Not a lot is getting done outside in the garden. Iris unguicularis puts up flowers every week, only to have the wind and rain smash them flat within days. 

Between rain squalls, I went out to check on Iris hartwegii australis in its planter under the eaves—and it looks quite happy. There are double the number of fans from last year—and I’m hoping for flowers. 

Iris hartwegii australis--happy in its planter under the eaves. The three main shoots of last year are replaced by more than seven this winter. 

Last summer while harvesting iris pods for the SPCNI seed exchange, I saw a vole cleaning seeds from those same pods. It squeaked and dove off. These voracious herbivores do far more damage in my garden than I had previously realized:  

 *   Native West Coast bulbs that keep disappearing? Voles. 

 *  Ditto for Crocus and Lilium. More voles. 

 *  Rainlilies, which poke leaves up one day, only to have them vanish that night? Right again, voles. 

 *  The iris seedling pots and planters that are excavated one night as the seeds are starting to germinate? Yes, voles, expletives deleted. The last probably have some help from squirrels, crows, and jays.

Hypertufa planter with wire mesh cap, and inside,
Pacifica Iris seeds, soaking up winter rain
and getting ready to germinate. 

Voles tend to leave iris flowers and fans alone, but eat seeds and seedlings. I wonder how many species I’ve lost to them? All but two areas of Crocus are gone. As are Tulipa species bulbs—vanished by the dozens. Voles leave Alliums alone, mostly, and so those are doing well, as are the toxic bulbs of Hyacinthina, scillas or bluebells, which thrive here by the thousands. 

There are many potential vole reducing strategies. Mint-oil scented granules are apparently attractive to them; they cart off any that I apply, overnight. Cats aren’t determined enough to keep voles out of flower beds, and I like to birdwatch, so outside cats would defeat that activity. Terriers are excellent rodent hunters, but their indiscriminate digging is discouraging to any gardener. Haven’t figured out how to entice weasels to nest and breed here—though the years when we had resident weasels was also an excellent period for rodent suppression. When we rebuilt my cold frame, we added mesh panels, to protect the plants inside year round, and now finally have thriving, and flowering rain lilies.

I have plotted some strategies and am implementing several:  Wire cages, castor oil based deterrents, and gravel. New lilies went into wire mesh boxes underground, surrounded and capped by inches of gravel. Same for Crocus, Triteliaea, Dichlostemma, and other tasty bulbs and seeds. Pacifica Iris seeds are in hypertufa and stryofoam planters, with wire mesh caps. Over all garden beds, I am spreading castor oil mole-and-vole-deterring granules. 

Vole-resistance:  wire mesh box to bury in ground, and plant edible bulbs inside. For more deterrence, add a layer of gravel on top. 

The potential is what all gardeners want—better odds for a more floriferous garden in coming seasons. We’ll learn how these strategies work in a few months. 

The vole hazard here is probably due to location, which is next to a salt marsh in a temperate climate. Several vole species live in the marshes, and breed from March to October. The loss of even one key predator in a specific area means that voles can breed more quickly. Also, populations tend to peak every three to five years, thus my garden was overrun this year.  

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. 

Update on transplanted Iris hartwegii australis

By Kathleen Sayer

Last spring I moved one clump of Iris hartwegii australis (IRHA) to a well insulated planter and placed that planter under the eaves near a hose bib. My intention was to mimic montane thunderstorms in southern California during summer, and in winter to give IRHA some shelter from heavy rain, mimicking snow cover. 

Iris hartwegii australis in flower in its native habitat, the Transverse Ranges of southern California, photo courtesy Richard Richards. 

Richard Richards said this was the wrong time of year to move IRHA, that I should wait for fall. But his words came too late, I had already dug the clump and replanted it. Read about those details here:  https://theamericanirissociety.blogspot.com/2017/05/overcoming-climatean-experiment-with.html from May 2017.

I fully expected to see this plant wither in June and die. Which I would have then reported at some point. A few leaves did die back at the tips, and later browned off. You can see those brown leaves in the image below. 

However, the plant did not die. Instead, new leaf fans started growing in late spring. Then, a couple of weeks ago, several newer fans appeared: 

Recently transplanted Iris hartwegii australis, not yet dead, a new large dark green leaf fan on the left, and tiny newer fans around it. 

Closer in, see three young fans on the left shoot, and one on the right. 

So, this experiment in growing IRHA in a planter is still underway, and has not yet terminated in failure. This IRHA appears to be thriving in its new home!

I grow this plant in a medium sized rectangular styrofoam cooler covered with epoxy cement patch, but have been unhappy with the durability of the epoxy, so am now making hypertufa planters (perlite:coir:cement in 3:1:1 ratio). These should be more durable, and provide a well-aerated cool root-space for Pacifica Iris and other native species that prefer cool roots. Details to follow in a later post. 

Check roots to know when to transplant Pacifica Iris

February 26, 2017 

Kathleen Sayce

The West Coast is having a winter of pronounced weather, if one thinks of a series of Atmospheric Rivers (AR) as ‘pronounced’. I know I do—no soft drizzling days here, no ma'am. ARs are firehoses in the sky, huge rivers of moisture that deliver strong winds and warm rains from the Equator to higher latitudes. 

Above latitude 46 on the ocean, where I garden, rainfall is well above average for the water year, which began October 1st. Other areas are also above, including much of California, which is experiencing a definite wet season in an otherwise years-long drought. Those warm storms alternate with days of clear skies, balmy temperatures, and weeks of more typical winter weather, including snow, hail and much colder rain. 

Pacifica Iris clump with a little hail topdressing:  yes, this plant has active root growth below ground. 

This seesawing back and forth leads me to wonder what is going on below ground and when will be a good time to transplant irises, including Pacifica Iris. There is only one time to transplant them, and that is when plants are in active root growth. 

Healthy PCI buds suggest it's time to divide and replant--but check the roots first to ensure success. 

This means you have to gently scrape out the soil under the new buds and check the roots. Normally this is in the fall after rains begin, following dry summers, or winter into spring, before the annual summer drought begins. 

PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' has a lovely new root, and is ready to be moved. 

Another general rule is that while Pacifica Iris are flowering and ripening seeds, they can be transplanted. I’d like to know how widely this works, so if you have experience with transplanting during spring, please let me know, or add a comment here at the bottom. 

If you live in other climate areas and grow Pacifica Iris, begin by checking roots on the plants you want to divide, repot or transplant.

Between hail storms today I went out and dug around a few plants to see what they are doing in the soil. I found a mixed bag, ranging from completely dormant (Iris tenax) to starting to grow (several recent Ghio hybrids). 

This PCI fan shows the roots from young (and active) on the left through the full sequence of older darker roots to fine roots off the rhizome on the right. It's ready to be replanted. 

I’ve mentioned before that hybrids from the Bay Area in California flower too early in my garden to escape heavy rain, and thus rarely set seed. If the rain is so hard that flowers are battered, bees aren’t flying around either.  These irises also begin growing very early—perhaps they are more attuned to day length than temperature. 

The finding in late February in my garden was that some new roots are starting to elongate just behind the new fans in some plants. There aren’t very many yet, one root per fan so far, where there will be four or more in a few weeks, but that’s enough of a sign of new growth that those early flowering hybrids can be dug up, divided, and replanted. 

Iris tenax is just starting to break winter dormancy; you can see the green shoots to the upper right. Roots are still brown. 

I will wait a few weeks for the others. Iris tenax, I. thompsonii, I. innominata and their various hybrids are still largely dormant, with few signs of new leaves on the first, and only a few new shoots on the latter.

Iris lazica has a bud. Not a PCI, but a good companion to them, and one that adds months of flowers to the garden, as does I. unguicularis. 

For comparison, in southern California, PCI are in active growth and starting to flower. Meanwhile, Iris lazica has put up a first bud, along with PCI ‘Premontion of Spring’, which has been flowering off and on since last September, as has Iris unguicularis. 

The next time you look at your Pacific Iris plants and wonder about getting starting dividing, go check the roots first. It’s the best way to ensure success. 

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.  

Cleaning Pacifica Iris Seeds

Kathleen Sayce

October 2, 2016

Having put off seed cleaning much too long, today I cleaned seeds of all the iris pod bags collected this year, with a dry windy day to help the cleaning process along. 

Organza party bags with PCI 'Mission Santa Cruz' seeds inside. 

The goal:  To contain the seeds that this open pod sheds. Mission accomplished.

Organza party bags do a nice job of containing seeds as the pods ripen on the plants outside. Moss green fades nicely into the background, ensuring that those pods can hide for a year or two. Brighter colors ensure you can find the bags sooner rather than later. I put the pods in the bags into a clean, clearly-labeled brown paper bag to dry out of the sun in a cool spot in my house. 

The first seeds would ripen in June, but that lot is largely Ghio hybrids, which flower in March-April, and almost never set seed. One year there were more than 10 pods on PCI ‘Finger Pointing’. I bagged them, sent all the seeds to the seed exchange. That plant hasn’t set seed since. The irises that flower in May and June are the ones that reliably set seed in my garden. I bag pods ahead of ripening from late July to late August or early September. This is much later than gardens on the south half of the West Coast. 

Tools:  Mesh strainer, metal bowls, and fingers. 

I open the pods indoors, and shell out the seeds. Then I take the bowl of seeds with debris, and a second bowl outside, find a steady wind, and pour the seeds slowly from one bowl to another, about a foot apart, letting the wind separate out the chaff, dust, and other non-seed bits in the air between the bowls. 

A wire mesh strainer and lightweight metal bowl help when opening pods and cleaning off fine debris. One lot of seeds was rapidly splitting pods when I went out to cut them off the plants. I scraped up some seeds to add to the bag, so that bag had sand and mulch in it too. No photograph of this needed! It took about 8 pours, stopping to clean the empty bowl each time, to get the lighter debris out of that lot. I then had to pick out the mulch bits by hand. 

Note to self:  next year, cut off the pods you aren’t collecting, and if they hit the mulch, scrape it up and put it somewhere where the seeds can germinate on their own. 

The first autumnal storm blew through yesterday. Today with much lighter winds, I could trickle seeds from one bowl to another and let the wind blow off the lighter debris. I do this over a garden bed, so if seeds do blow out in a hard gust, they land where they can germinate. 

Easy pods to clean! These Iris tenax pods open on their own. All I have to do is check for seeds caught in the crevices.  

Pods vary widely in their ability to open on their own. Species pods do very well, especially Iris tenax, I. innominata and I. chrysophylla. For these seed lots, cleaning is a matter of checking the sections in each pod to make sure no seeds are still lodged inside. 

Annoying pods to clean:  Iris douglasiana pods often stay tightly closed in my climate. I clip the tips off, see lower photo, then pry out the seeds if removing the tips hasn't loosed the sutures along each section. 

Not so with Pacifica hybrids, as these pods, like Iris douglasiana, tend to be slower to open, or many not open at all. I cut off tips, break pods in half, roll them in my fingers or between palms to loosen seeds, then shake and pry them out. It’s a slow process. 

If I have the time, when the seeds are ripe but the pods are not yet fully dry (as they’ve turned yellowish brown), I open the pods as I cut them. They pull open like a three sided pea pod at that stage. Later, the pods are hard and the sutures, the splitting lines between the sections, harden. It might be climate:  gardening on the Pacific Northwest Coast, we do not experience the heat of gardens to the south along the West Coast. 

Cean dry seeds to send to the seed exchange. 

The result:  Clean seeds, with bugs, larvae, spiders, earwigs, snails and other seed and pod grazers removed, ready to bag and send to the seed chairman for the SPCNI Seed Exchange. 

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.