Iris is an Iris too me, Sorry I have Dwarf, Intermediate, Tall Bearded, and Japanese that I know of.... Rabbit's foot is listed as a dwarf but it gets tall for me. Too tall for my Dwarf Iris Garden I can Say No White, Yellow, Purple, Or Blue. So that Eliminates some. Just ones I don't Have. Tried to email you but could not figure out my yahoo, as I never use it. I hit Compose and nothing happens for me. This post was edited by mamabear on Fri, Jun 21, 13 at 8:31

This is a good thread. We have more annual rainfall than you Californians, about 40", but have long summer droughts and very heavy soil, somewhat compensated by the garden's being on a slope. We get snow most winters--last winter was a wet one, with five feet of snow that melted however promptly--but temperatures rarely fall below 20F, tending to stay in the thirties and forties much of the time during winter. I grow my plants as others have described here: roses and shrubs underplanted with subshrubs, perennials, bulbs, and self-seeding annuals. We don't water plants after the first year. Last year we went four months with one centimeter of rain: most things survived. We keep a heavy mulch on our beds. My plant list: Bearded iris, which I DO like; this is unkillable if you don't overwater it. Also I. orientalis, more commonly known as I. ochroleuca. Snakeshead iris, an iris relative, is good. Lavender, mostly lavandins (L. angustifolia x L. latifolia) and L. angustifolia and close relatives: these are hardy and don't mind heavy soil. L. stoechas may need looser soil; my finely cut tender lavender died to the ground last winter but is coming back. L. lanata is supposed to be tender, but I've never seen cold damage on mine: it has brilliant silvery foliage and violet flowers, and does well in hot, dry places. Artemisias of every kind, perovskia. I hear some of these can be invasive; in my garden I think they employ all their energies just staying alive. Caryopteris is good and handsome; sometimes it seeds. Thymes don't hold up well, but I think they might do better at the feet of roses with some protection from sun and wind. Mother-of-thyme (Thymus serpyllum) does very well this way as a ground cover, as does the caraway-scented thyme, the botanical name of which escapes me. Common culinary sage does well for me and is a handsome plant that the bees love; if it's particularly happy it will self-seed. The form with purple leaves dies out, but the yellow-variegated kind does great without summer water: mine stays prostrate. I'm beginning to discover the ornamental sages. I was recently given S. microphylla and S. 'Indigo Spires'; the giver tells my they both do well in a dry garden, but I'm watering mine as they're in their first year. S. guaranitica is a magnificent plant, but it gets big (think two meters tall and wide, though somewhat open in growth) and needs a little shelter from sun and wind, but it's not fussy. Rosemary in its many forms. It can be killed by a very wet winter, but I just plant a new plant: like most of these aromatic plants it's very easy to grow from cuttings. It stretches out and roots as it goes. Dahlias and kniphofias (red hot poker) are surprisingly modest in their water needs, at least if they're in heavy soil. Spring-blooming bulbs do their growing in winter and early spring when there's water, then go dormant in summer during the dry period. Daffodils, tulips, crocus all thrive here. Many of them need winter chill, and critters like them, except for daffodils, which have the enormous virtue of being poisonous. Common daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) grows everywhere. In California I'd be checking out the native bulbs. More aromatics: every kind of Nepeta; lavender cotton (Santolina) in all its varieties; Phlomis, to which a friend recently introduced me; this year I'm trying hyssop in the open garden. Field poppies, the annual red poppy that you see in Impressionist paintings; that stately weed mullein (it does take up a lot of space its second year). Then there are the drought-tolerant shrubs, but that's another discussion. Gardening is always an experiment. Our garden is influenced by our deep and heavy soil and by our usually generous annual rainfall. Since we don't water in summer we usually can grow plants like rosemary in heavy ground, but if we do get a lot of rain in late spring or summer, rosemary can die. A dry garden in summer means that we usually don't have to worry about our tall bearded iris rotting or losing our daffodils. We have enough winter chill for temperate climate plants. There are so many factors that influence a plant's growth that it's worth trying ones you like. Melissa

Chemocurl -- that's the iris i've been looking for LOL!! Your too funny. Hi Nancy - unfortunatley it's not Lead Dog but i'll be looking up dog rose. ctmark - i'll going to look up Fancy Dog. Now that i'm thinking......maybe it didn't have "dog" in it,but it was a really unusual name (like an ugly name for a beautiful flower)

Well I see that ebayer The-iris-cottage no longer has any listings at all, though she sold irises almost year round last winter. One can no longer even see the completed auctions, yet there was feedback left today. What I did find quite strange though, is that there is an ebayer named atoka99 that is selling irises, started selling rhizomes in March of 2008 and has given their location as The Iris Cottage, United States. That seems strange to me that the seller does not give their location...not even a state. I wonder what is up with that. If they are not wanting to be associated with ebayer the-iris-cottage, I would think they would not use that for their location. Sue