Iris unguicularis

Kathleen Sayce ksayce@willapabay.org
Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:09:37 PST
'come to Northern California some summer for a visit and help divide  
it.'

I would love to make that trip at the right time of year. Mary Sue,  
let me know what the right time in summer is.

I've had this species (iriung) growing in my garden for several  
years, but it flowers only in midwinter to late winter. I saw it  
flowering in a Fort Bragg, CA yard two weeks ago.
It's in a dry bed that gets only natural rainfall, among Cistus and  
Penstemon plants. There is coarse mulch around, but not near this plant.

Here on the coast, growing in silty sand, I've learned that the  
summers are so dry, despite lack of many days of high heat, and with  
fog, that I have to treat the elevated areas in my garden like a dry  
rock garden, and grow either natives, which are accustomed to the  
summer dry, or introduced plants that can tolerate the summer dry and  
winter wet. Hardiness zones don't quite mesh with what survives  
either, as others have noted. As Roger mentioned, it's the soggy  
winters that usually finish off many species that are from a  
temperature point of view, hardy.  So, curiously, this means that  
more than a few mediterranean climate plants do rather well here, but  
not all. . .

As an indicator of said soggy conditions, I offer Eremurus, which  
I've killed so many times that I am no longer even going to try it,  
except in a greenhouse, perhaps, someday.

Kathleen



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