A Chorus Line For Our Star
Peggy Estes
A lot of irisarians are content to grow just irises--usually in rows. Growing in rows is by far the best horticultural method as you can accomplish the good air circulation and drainage necessary, plus it being easier to cultivate, water and feed. Then there are those, like me, who are trying to create an illusion of an entire garden in full bloom with all the complementary perennials, biennials, and annuals to enhance the lovely irises.
Peonies: This is a basic landscaping plant, gorgeous in bloom but a fine accent plant all summer long with the excellent green foliage. Their huge pink, white, red and coral blossoms are a wonderful foil for the stately iris. Unless you have an acreage you really can't collect peonies. A clump is usually about three feet in diameter, so this is a lot of space in an ordinary garden. I grow twenty varieties.
Columbine: These are not long lived perennials like the peony, but once you get them started, they will reseed and grow well in your shady areas. They come in blue, pink, purple, yellow, red and white and bloom for a long time. Let them go to seed.
Sweet Rocket: These come up in the fall from seed. They come in white and purple (I have heard of pink ones), grow about five feet tall and are loaded with spires of bloom. Naturally, these don't come up where you want them. On a wet day I simply move them to form a background for the irises. They do better with staking (so do the peonies) because they are heavy with bloom. I used those new three tiered tomato stakes, placing them early so the plant grows on through them. When they are in bloom you can't even see the stakes. Be sure to let a few plants go to seed so you can have them again next year.
Poppies: I admired this particular poppy in a lady's garden when my children were babies. She was kind enough to give me some seed, as you can buy them, and I have grown them ever since. The colors are red, pink, purple and fuschia--large puffy balls. The little plants appear in the winter and early spring and grow to about three feet tall with large grey-grey foliage. These don't transplant well so just weed them out where you don't want them. I always pull up the single flowered ones so they won't reseed--leave some of the others to make seed.
Dianthus: These are for the edges of your beds. You can buy young plants early in the spring and have loads of blooms by iris time. There are several named varieties that are charming, but my favorite is Queen of Hearts which is a mass of bright red blooms from several weeks. Some of these will stay for two or three years and be more beautiful each year, but they are so inexpensive that you should add some each year.
Pansies: Plant them in the fall and they will start blooming in late February and continue until it gets hot. My two favorites are Imperial Blue (dark blue in the center fading out to light blue) and Imperial Orange, a beautiful color in front of blue irises.
Anchusa Myosotisdiflora: Quite a mouthful but nevertheless an extremely satisfying plant. It grows in shady places, seeding itself liberally (you need two plants to start), starts blooming as soon as it pops out of the ground in March and continues for weeks with sprays of forget-me-not blue flowers. As summer progresses, the foliage becomes extremely attractive by getting very big and heart shaped. It grows beautifully and easily under shrubs and places hard to make attractive.
Shrubs: I really don't think of azaleas as shrubs, but the one I have in mind is big enough to be called one. It always blooms with the irises, has a large single blossom of lavender-edged with purple and is easily grown. Its name is MARTHA HITCHCOCK. Duetzia is the other shrub that puts on a real show. I grow it on the east and north in proper acid soil. I have had mine for more years than I care to record--it always blooms prolifically at iris time. It grows about three feet tall with graceful arching sprays of pure white tiny bells.
There are many more interesting plants blooming at this time, but the ones I have mentioned are the ones that really complement the irises, which I think of as the star of the show. These are also the ones that I use in flower designs in the iris shows. One other I might mention is one I don't know the name of. It is a wild flower that I got a start of many years ago before I knew it was a wild flower. I grow in along the stepping stone path fully expecting my garden visitors to step over its small mats of greyish foliage covered with bright yellow flowers the size of nickels. This is one I don't pick.
(Reprinted from Sooner State Iris News, April - May 1985)