Today (5/14/11)
Last year (5/27/10)"If your iris are blooming a different color than originally purchased, it is because of letting your iris go to seed: the bloom stalk was not removed shortly after blooming. Bees do a wonderful job of pollinating different colors for the following year. The dominant color of iris is purple and will take over if the bloom stalk is not removed shortly after the bloom dries up. Chemical damage, overcrowding, and heat stress can be a factor in some color changes."
So says one website. Yet I think none of this applies to my small bunch of iris. It's a mystery!
4 comments:
hmmm never knew that could happen! Amazing.!!
I'm thinking maybe yellow was the original color and they were under stress last year. Before that they didn't bloom. They're in a container with very little soil where I tossed them when someone gave me the few stalks about 4 years ago; I never got around to planting them.Gratuitous beauty.
I saw this on that web page that Biddie mentioned on my Iris post
Do Iris change color?
We have grown Iris since 1925 and have never seen an Iris change color. Iris do not change color - it's simply a genetic impossibility. If your Iris are blooming in colors different than you'd expect, what is more likely to have happened is that your Iris are overcrowded. More vigorous varieties will tend to crowd out the less vigorous varieties. Give your Iris lots of space, and divide them every three or four years. When you divide them, be sure to dig up the entire clump, not leaving behind any new shoots that might get mixed in with your new varieties. Another possible explanation is that a chemical drift from a chemical spray (such as the weed killer Roundup) affected your Iris, possibly warping and damaging the flower and its color.
Interesting, Kristen.
Post a Comment