TALL BEARDED IRISES
Classic TB iris LEDA'S LOVER in our home garden.
Yes, we know - we are a Beardless Iris Nursery! But we are also aware that many people still like the Tall Bearded irises, as well as the Beardless irises - so we have attempted to accommodate everybody's tastes!
We do stock a small range of potted Tall Bearded iris (Iris Germanica), which we have generally available for sale at the various garden club and garden events we attend during the year. The listing is extremely elastic, as cultivars sell out quickly. If you would like to attend any of the events on the "What's Happening At Iris Haven" page (page 8) - and you'd like us to bring along some of the potted Tall Bearded irises for you to purchase at your garden club meeting and/or garden event - just let us know!
Tall Bearded Iris JITTERBUG
We have been trialling many different varieties and cultivars over the last five years or so and have found a good listing of varieties that will cope with the higher-humidity garden regimes of coastal NSW.
We DO NOT RECOMMEND Tall Bearded irises for anywhere further north along the coast of NSW than Sydney, as the high humidity that these areas receive in Summer can devastate your TB's in one afternoon of hot, humid weather. We accept that your garden may have a special micro-climate - but ordinarily you are toying with disaster to consider Tall Bearded irises. Louisiana irises, however, will thrive in this same environment.
We have also found that we have greater success with the older varieties of Tall Bearded Irises (say, pre-1990) than the more modern cultivars. Our garden in Sydney gets high humidity in summer, but reasonably cool weather in winter which ensures that the older, more classic varieties can not only cope - but flower for us.
If you are looking for the 'latest and greatest' Tall Bearded iris cultivars - stop reading now. There are plenty of other mainstream Bearded Iris specialist nurseries that can accommodate your preferences.
TALL BEARDED IRIS CULTURAL REQUIREMENTS.
Tall Bearded irises require the following conditions in order to do well for you.
a) The rhizome of these irises MUST be left above the level of the soil and kept fully exposed to full sun, full frost, full snow - or whatever else your garden receives.
b) ABSOLUTELY NO MULCH within a full hand-span distance from the rhizomes. Tall Bearded irises need to have good airflow around the rhizomes. You can mulch the rest of your garden, but please don't mulch your TB irises. Mulching can lead to fungus rot.
c) Very little fertilizer please! We recommend a light feeding of commercial rose fertilizer in APRIL and AUGUST ONLY. These irises don't want too much food - and please don't feed them with any nitrogenous fertilizer, as you will get the most luscious leaves and no flowers (and this may also help you to understand why you may not have had many flowers in the past).
d) A minimum of half a day sun - and full sun is the best.
e) Tall Bearded irises prefer an alkaline soil. If your soil is neutral/acidic, try adding some dolomite or lime to the soil to raise the Ph level.
Armed with this information - let's hope that you can have better success with your Tall Bearded iris varieties.
The classic Tall Bearded Iris BAHLOO
If you would like to know more about our potted TB iris stock, please just email us, using the convenient email link below. Please put 'TB Iris enquiry' in the subject line, thank you.
This page was updated on 15th September, 2010.
