PlantFiles: Wild Iris, Fortnight Lily, Cape Iris
Dietes iridioides

I just bought mine, I plan on planting it with some grasses. Does anyone have a photo of the plant on a larger scale. I would like to see the whole plant not just the flowers. I am excited to see it will be easy to propagate either by seeds or dividing.. I like getting more than one plant for my buck! :D

I grew this plant from seed 5 years ago. Today, 5/20/06, it is blooming for the first time in my greenhouse in Central PA. Quite impressive. It didn't bloom, however, until after I had potted it up to a larger pot.

It's proven itself to be TX heat tolerant. Although it seems to do better when protected by trees. It grows well right up against all my trees, including pine trees. I collected a ton of dried seed pods last fall but still havn't figured out how to get them started, meanwhile i have a few new ones sprouting all on their own. I havn't divided them yet (2 seasons) but I will in fall. Overall, low maintenance with good payoff.

These were planted when the house was built. For best growth, they should be pulled up and divided regularly. If not they will get huge and the bottom leaves will turn brown. I have noticed lots of babies that I have been giving away. The flowers are pretty. I will try to stop them from spreading seed everywhere again. They are nice, but I don't want tons of them.

Sturdy, ultra-low maintenance plant here in Central Florida. It grows rapidly -- even very small, one-gallon plants grow within three years to 2-3' or more in diameter.
Grows best in filtered light here in FL (direct sun farther north), but I have it in full direct sunlight in the swale and it's doing well in those tough conditions, though the leaves are not as deep green. Flowers best in sun, but even in full shade it flowers and grows. Blooms in flushes, with large flowers in the cool season and smaller ones when it's hot. Makes a beautiful cut flower, though lasts only one day.
It does self-sow, but the seedlings are easy to recognize and shallow-rooted.
Note: These plants, when large, are VERY difficult to dig and divide. I have dug and divided monster clums of 4' -- it took me more than an hour to pull the plant out of the ground and another hour to cut the plant into manageable clumps. That said, the one large clump produced 10 medium plants that are now filling a bed.

I think this is a lovely flower but it has proved too cold in my Atlanta garden for it. I raised 12 plants from seed. They were good sturdy plants and were very full this fall (no flowers yet) but only one survived the winter, and it is very small with one or two leaves. I had planted two nursery plants but they did not survive either.

Maybe I'll try in my back garden where it is more protected and confine them to pots that can live in the garage in the winter.

They look great initially. They do well with very little water and tolerate full sun. But they must be trimmed back at the root. Otherwise they spread, growing in diameter and in density.

To remove them: cut them down to about 3" from the ground. Soak them with water to loosen the roots in the ground. Then, with a pick axe, loosen the roots all around and in the center. Then, you can shake them out of the ground with the pick axe that is driven into the center of the plant. Whole bunches of roots come out when you shake them out this way, saving lots of time.

I removed a lawn and planted the area with Dietes iridioides (or, I "thought" I had removed the lawn). Although I'm impressed by the hardiness of dietes, the bermuda grass coming up through the middle of the tight dietes clumps has been nearly impossible to weed. I'm hoping to find a spray that kills the bermuda, but not the dietes.

Other than the bermuda problem, this plant has performed beautifully year round.

This is a very drought tolerant plant once established. Forms clumps of attractive evergreen foliage. Great flowers. A good plant to try. pokerboy.

The flowers of the Dietes Vegata have pastel stripes that look like they were hand painted on the white flowers. Also called the fortnight lilly because it blooms in two week intervals, this is a very hardy plant, especially in areas that experience periods of drought. I have seen them growing wild on the banks of the Kissimee River in Florida, zone 9a.

I really like this plant.I think the flowers are lovely and the green blade like leaves make attractive clumps. It does self seed but as removing seed pod will increase flowering I don't find it a problem. The seed heads take quite a time to ripen so it is just a job for doing when passing.
I've had cause to lift and split a couple of large clumps in recent times. Well rooted pieces went straight back into the ground. Pieces with little or no roots went into ordinary potting compost. All the pieces in the potting compost survived. The newly split pieces are the only ones I've found needing water. Established clumps seem very drought tolerant.

Beautiful flowers, nice blade like structure, almost continuous flowering. Self seeds easily, but the new plants are very shallow rooted and easy to pull. My cyclamen and callas have self seeded as much or more than this plant and I sure won't give them up.

Agree on the weediness. These are planted in parking lots to provide quick growth. I had one. Split it into 2 when it got big. They are both ready to split now.

I thought I had all these baby glads coming up everywhere. Cool, I thought. I felt the foliage after I noticed it wasn't dying back. Lots of dietes plants!!! I'm yanking them all up this winter!

The seeds are very pretty, dark mahogany in color, smooth texture, shaped a little like small Indian Corn kernals.

I've had no trouble with this plant, it stays where it is put and behaves -- but then, Florida is a high rainfall state, and the southwest is not. The plant probably goes to where there is water, roses would be a prime candidate. It is not very drought tolerant. Perhaps where it is invasive but is still wanted, it should be container grown.

In Southern California, this plant is extremely weedy; completely out of control. It evades every single bush--roses and Bird of Paradise included--and starts its growth in the middle of the bush, which makes it very difficult, if not impossible, so remove it. I have rose bushes with five or six Dietes growing through it! Very invasive plant.

This plant has iris-like flowers that are on perennial clumps of narrow bright green leaves. This is a very low maintenance plant that thrives on neglect.Each flower last only a day, but is quickly replaced by another. Bloom bursts seem to come in at 2 week intervals. Divide clumps in fall or winter.

A rhizomatous perennial from Southern Africa. Though listed as Zone 9 it has survived outside in my garden in Central England (European Zone 8), provided it gets plenty of protection (fallen leaves, straw etc..). However, they do best in frost free zones with dry summers.

Flowers (see picture) are followed by large elongated seed pods that are full of small, hard, black seeds. Easy to raise from seed, by careful division of large rhizomes, or by the offsets that are formed on the flower spike after flowering.