Dutch Iris definitely seem to do better for a good summer baking so mixing them up with the Narcissus is possibly not a good move. In my zone I tend to get the Dutch Iris coming out with my earliest daffodils - which happen to be shorties. The picture is cream and yellow against the silvery-blue foliage of the Iris and various shades of blue above. Then the taller varieties of daffodils start in. The earlies are placed to get as much sun as possible to ripen up for the following year - and to die away with as little obvious mess as I can manage. In short, I would not over-plant. I would set out my bulbs to take advantage of the shelter, green or bluish leaves of other clumps, and the timing of a particular variety. Also size - because I have a soft spot for the bulbocodiums and I don't want them swamped with the 'King Alfred'. A mix of miniatures and full-size, doubles and singles, earlies and lates. With the odd clumps of Muscari, Hyacinths, Ixias and Sparaxis to give a lift. Just not overplanted. I wouldn't do that even in a pot, with these two species. (By the time the poeticus show up near December - I'm relieved to be on to Impatiens and marigolds. Sheer heresy! But so it is...)

Yes. The yellow iris - which was supposed to be blue and descended from the blue flags of Mary Gardiner - is blooming right now. It is bearded. The bud starts out blue tipped then opens to yellow standards and blue striped yellow falls. Within a day or two the blue stripes turned brown and the yellow standards were not really clear yellow any more. We have had heat and rain so that may account for the dulling of the colors. The plant is robust and spreads rapidly. The flowers are 30"to 36" tall and smaller than those of today's. Meanwhile we have been in touch with Dr. Favretti and he says that we obviously have the wrong iris as his ARE blue. He has recently divided his, discarding the extras but has offered us another try after his present clump spreads enough for another divide.I expect to get in touch with him again to see if he knows the botanical name of the Gardiner Island iris and if he could send us a picture. We also tried to make contact with "the President's House" at Yale but got no response, and we have e-mailed the museum at Worden in Holland asking for information about corespondence of Mary Gardiner. Also no answer to date. So the hunt goes on. At least we now know that the yellow iris we have been cherishing as blue flag Gardiner Island is the wrong one and we may discard it. Gnomlet aka Marianne

I can just make out what looks like a seed pod in your tiny phot. It looks like you might have iris setosa, versicolour or virginica? Let the pod ripen until it shows signs of splitting. It will be fairly dry by then. Plant the seeds in a good seed raising mix and keep moist at all times. You should get plants similar to the parent if your parent plant is an iris species. If the parent is a hybrid, then the seeds will produce a mixture.

Yes, I was expecting some dark bluish purple thing with a name like Blackbeard :-) Jan, it definitely looks like Conjuration from the photos in that link...thanks for the info now I'll have to wonder if all the others I bought will be the same, or if they'll be different...oh the joys of finding out! It'll be like Christmas each time one opens!! Maria