PlantFiles: Crested Iris
Iris 'Nada'

This plant did very well the first couple of years after I planted it. I have some that gets pretty severe afternoon sun in my front yard and then some in a courtyard that opens to the north. I divided them after getting almost no blooms in the third year and the number of blooms was even worse the next year. I figured that it might take a year to recover. Now I've got lots of pretty plants - no blooms hardly at all this year. I'm ready to rip them out and try something else! If you want them, e-mail me!

Actually, this beautiful iris (my fave of the Japanese cresteds) is a hybrid of I japonica x I confusa (or I wattii, depending on who you're talking to). It is the most vigorous as well as the most floriferous of anything related to Iris japonica. The leaves are 24" long and the bloom stalk can contain up to 10 widely separated 2 - 2.5" flowers, but I've heard it's capable of more. The foliage is glaucous and lays at a 45* or so angle to the ground, closely overlapping so that, when planted under shrubs, it gives the effect of water.

Easy, stunningly beautiful and very fast and unfortunately often mislabled in the trade. If the foliage of the plant you are buying is dark green and shiny, it is not 'Nada' but probably Iris japonica which I find to be stingy with flowering. If the fans are tall and have a purple coloration at the base of the fans, it is probably 'Eco Happy Easter', almost as beautiful and vigorous as 'Nada', but with palest blue flowers and green leaves.

The flowers are white with yellow in the crest.

General Information for Gulf Coast Gardeners:
Shade loving, evergreen foliage 1.5'-2' high. Small orchid-like blooms, several to each stalk, in the spring. Likes azalea conditions. Plant rhizomes just beneath the surface of the soil, mulch in the summer. Plant spreads rapidly!