The Iris reticulata at our place live in fairly large pots - about 14" across and about 10" deep. (We have a tendency to make bulb kebabs with the garden fork...) The mix is free-draining and has pumice included. The bulbs are planted around four inches deep, and they were planted at the 'right time' of the year. After flowering they are fed with tomato fertiliser, or slow release. Over summer they receive rain water and the occasional splosh from a passing hose. They don't actually 'bake', as such. And they are rarely disturbed. I probably won't decant them until they are more crowded - perhaps next year. They've been in those pots for at least three years. Huey, the Weather God, has sent a couple of mild summers our way and the retics have responded with plenty of flowers - pale and dark blue, and the purply-red ones. The leaves come up between four and six inches high before they complete their cycle. This year I bought some end of season bulbs and planted them close to the surface and in a shallow bowl, about six inches in depth. They have come up and several have flowered. The leaves came first and are about 12" high. I bought a further bunch and have potted them on but they have yet to appear although a nosey finger says that roots have begun and a few tentative shoots have emerged. It has been an exceptionally wet winter. This last lot were bought in July (your January equivalent). I'm interested to see how they'll respond in subsequent years.

I especially like the color of the blue ones. Lovely! I like the detail in the second photograph.

I have some that have been overtaken by shrubs, they continue to bloom just fine. I think the blooms on those last longer than the ones I have in full sun. That might be different from shade from trees though.

No squirrel problems with mine. I have big patches of Harmony and Pixie, both dark blues, and another of Springtime, a two-toned blue. Mine bloom very early, a few weeks before my crocuses bloom. They have returned well over the past 3-4 years. (Another similar iris, Iris danfordiae (golden yellow) that I tried between the blue patches was much less successful.) A small warning - just so you can take it into consideration when deciding where to plant yours - Iris reticulata foliage is not as clean as most minor bulbs are. After bloom the iris put up tall very thin blue-greenish foliage, usually just one stalk per bulb. It elongates from a couple of inches to about 12 inches over a period of a week or two and takes awhile to die back. The foliage is not heavy looking, but if you have a lot of bulbs as I do, it is quite noticeable. I have my Iris reticulata in a bed of small daylilies. The daylilies do not emerge until weeks after the Iris is done. Once the iris foliage gets limpish I take a couple of minutes & sort of tuck it under the growing strap-like foliage of the DLs. Once the iris foliage dies the daylily bed looks like it is mulched with a thin layer of very long pine needles, which eventually disappears by mid summer.