Have dutch iris now bloming blue and white,have three new varities from lowea whit and white with yellow center really put on a great show however they have finshed bloming and the leaves need to create energy for next spring could send ?,ive got La. blue and white flag iris yellow flag iris ,to trade many great ornamental grases What else to make a large trade LOL Hightider

I am looking for irises in the purple shades with white..such as rare treat, in reverse, cascade springs...or a light purple with dark purple, all dark but not the common plain purple, or whites with some purple on them. I don't want the really black/purple irises, too dark for what I am looking for. I also don't want burgandy shades or bluish shades, just purples. These do not really need to be named, but I would like to have some idea what they look like. I am going to be planting about 50 feet of mixed purples and whites, so looking for larger trades. I have japanese maples and redbuds to trade, a few daylilies, some unnamed peonies and crinums. Thanks!

A quick follow-up -- I ordered something like 200 Dutch Iris several years ago, all one color, a deep blue/purple. I felt like a fool getting so many! I didn't treat them well, so only have far less than that original 200, but those come back faithfully for me every year, and get AWESOME! They bloom in Mid March for me. I was so thrilled with them last year that I decided to order more and then bought extras from Lowe's/Home Depot when theirs went on sale. The bulb size from Van Engelen was smallish, but okay. The ones from Lowe's/HD were TINY in comparison. Ya' get what you pay for. I need to re-arrange a lot of beds, so, IF I can find/dig up the old bulbs, I'm sure the labels are gone. I'll have a rainbow in my field! If you can keep them from year to year, I think they get taller & stronger stemmed each year, at least my old blue/purple ones do. Good luck. Susi. I think I got the original 200 from a place called Marlboro Bulbs out of one of the Carolinas. I think they might have changed their name. I got a bunch of Daffs from them too. It advertised in Growing for Market or the ASCFG quarterly. I no longer get either and haven't re-ordered. No problems w/ the quality--I think they're one of those places where you have to order 200's of some things, and I didn't have that foresight to order in those quantities.

I'm in zone 7 Maryland, for me Siberians start blooming the middle of May, a week to two weeks earlier than the Japanese Iris. The foliage of Japanese iris is overall more subtantial than that of Siberians. The leaf is wider and thicker, and has a fat, rigid mid-rib that keeps it from being floppy. It also stays a nice medium green the whole season (not as dark a green as Siberians). If your Siberian foliage held up well for you, there should be no problem with the Japanese. I have actually left the foliage on the whole winter some years and it was a quite attractive gray-brown, standing tall until I cut it down in February or March. They (at least my Japanese iris) set a lot of seed, and the pods are also attractive. Letting them go to seed hasn't seemed to affect the amount of bloom I get year to year. Sometimes I deadhead, sometimes I don't. But, unless you are particularly interested in seeing the results of genetic recombination, make sure to remove the seed pods before they start to split open - three or four years ago I didn't and I'm still getting seedlings all over the place. One of the seedlings was actually quite lovely (I somehow missed it weeding, and it got to blooming size), having gotten a deep purple color and flat, round form from one parent and a stripe/stippling pattern from another, so I kept it; the rest have gone to the compost pile... - Steve