Sarah’s favourite iris

Watch as Sarah shares why she loves these particular varieties of iris reticular and why you should grow them, especially with tulips in a bulb lasagne

I find February quite a tricky month its sort of cold windy wet urm it’s it can be really quite miserable and we’ve already had a lot of winter but the thing that lights up my February without doubt are the iris reticulatas its amazing I mean they flower naturally now you don’t have to force them you don’t have to put them in the green house just up they come in February and that’s the reason that we can have so many of them at Perch Hill pretty much every pot, big pot anyway, are topped with different iris reticulatas. Just for exactly that reason that they are fabulous in February 

So, the first one I’ve got in my hand here is Fabiola and it is really exceptionally beautiful because I think, of the lack of yellow so its just white its very pure its very simple its very stylish. And it has delicious scent. 

And then this one here is harmony which is the traditional reticulata and I love it for that gash of gold so its brighter and more contrasty and again has has nice scent, then this one here, is actually called ‘scent sational’, which is is beautiful as sort of velvet purple but without doubt of all the ones I have in my hand well, certainly of the two purples, I’m in love with this one which is just, literally like black velvet it’s called ‘Purple Hill’ and the scent is really exceptional of palma violets. So, four different iris reticulatas for February and for me they’re just the thing you have to grow.

One of the things I love here is that you’ve got the tulips coming up from beneath and they’ve got this sort of purple smokiness to their foliage to their leaves and that really highlights the beautiful richness of these falls the outer petal of an iris and they’ve got this fantastic white and yellow markings, they are absolutely exquisite. And just beautiful in the top layer of your bulb lasagne so tulips below, 2 or 3 levels of tulips and then just topping it off with the iris, fantastic.