For some reason, this morning the late garden writer Henry Mitchell came to mind.

Henry Mitchell used to write columns for the Washington Post. One of his columns was the 'Earthman', which was basically about gardens and gardening, his in particular. He would talk about his plants (he passionately loved irises, which he called the 'Queen of the Garden', and waterlilies), he would talk about his "crackpot" garden projects (he had a marvelous (and sometimes wicked) sense of humor), he would sometimes talk about other gardeners, and about his beloved dogs.

He was not politically correct; were he writing garden essays in this snowflake social era, many of them would never see the light of day.

*I* found his writing refreshing, and have yet to find a garden writer that I like more. If I have a model for garden writing (I can't say that I consciously do, or not), his style lurks in the back of my mind. I suppose you could say that he has had a lasting effect on me, both on my garden writing, and as a gardener.

All of this is a long-winded introduction to where my thoughts this morning were leading me.

I have a lot of white irises (because of the Moon Garden). I have a lot of purple irises (because DH). I have lavenders, blues, some oranges, some pinks, and despite my dissing them, I have been adding more and more yellow irises.

This brought to mind one particular essay (I'm trying to find it again) that Henry wrote about the irises in HIS garden. The thrust of it, as I recall, was that he wasn't satisified with the overall effect. Some grand dame fellow iris lover visited his garden during the iris season, and pronounced that he needed more of such-and-such a color. He immediately rejected the idea ("over my dead body") but came around, and added such. The next season his iris garden came to life and sparkled.

The food for thought here, now that we are past mid-summer, but still have a last chance to add more irises to our gardens, is this: What color might we have overlooked (or underrepresented) in our garden, and would that color bring the irises to life? (Arguably, the same might be true for what color pattern... I am still thinking that one over.)

I guess that's justification enough for more yellow irises.

(For those who like to read garden essays, Henry Mitchell's were collected into three books (all of which I have in hardbound): THE ESSENTIAL EARTHMAN, ONE MAN'S GARDEN, HENRY MITCHELL ON GARDENING. All are available on Amazon, and from other book sellers.)

I don't have a beautiful garden, as in plants arranged for their aesthetic effect. Rather I have a garden with beautiful plants placed for the optimum growing conditions, where I have room etc.

Marilyn, I would like to read some of Henry Mitchell's work. Which of the three books would you recommend?

I'm looking forward to forum member's thoughts on what colors of iris are under-represented in their gardens. I know I am very partial to combinations of blue and yellow, so I have a lot of those.



I dislike very, very dark irises, so I don't have any of those such as Black Lipstick. I love neglectas and have too many of those. Also, I have a lot of lavender and pink combinations like Sweet Musette - too many!



I'm thinking I should try combinations of wine and pink.
Up in Flames


Path to Heaven


Other Side of Heaven

Andrea, it has been a while since I've read them, but as I recall, I liked the first two of the books better than the third, HENRY MITCHELL ON GARDENING (which was published posthumously; he had sold his wife the rights for his essays for $1, if memory serves).

I don't recall which of the other two books came first, though. I enjoyed both of them, so you might like either of them.

None of the essays are how-to... They are more about the goings-on in his garden (with a few departures to talk about his dogs), and his opinions and observations on gardening and gardeners and life. He had a lot of admirers; as I recall, there were people who didn't garden (or have dogs) who read every one of his EARTHMAN essays.

I definitely need more yellow and orange irises. My original garden plan was to have kangaroo paws and red hot pokers to provide the warm colours, and the irises and agapanthus to provide the cool colours. I have ditched that idea. Over the last couple of years, I have started to see kangaroo paws in blues and purples which I hope to acquire one day.
https://www.gardenexpress.com....
https://www.thetutuguru.com.au...

Blue and purple kangaroo paws really sound/look unusual, and could be gems for the right garden, but just not mine.

The problem with Agapanthus is that it does not bloom the same time as the bearded irises, at least not here. I have the standard light-medium blue ones that are evergreen, and also a dark blue one that is deciduous. It's been a battle keeping that latter one alive, although I love the color. I had to take the survivor (1 of 3) out of the ground and pot it; I'm not sure if the heavy clay soil + too much water in that spot did for the others, or (I think more likely given the lack of roots) if the gophers did for them.

I've been thinking about it, and I suppose that "red" irises are underrepresented in this garden (and to a lesser extent orange irises as well), but every red iris that I've ever seen (and this includes frankly burgundy irises) has muddy color. Ditto too for at least some of the orange irises. I hate mud in my flowers, and that is the reason that I punted the TB iris LEST WE FORGET some years ago. (And then I ground my teeth and bought it back, just for hybridizing because of its combo of two certain traits: PBF plus at least one reliable rebloom.)

Arguably most flowers have varying degrees of mud in them. In (muddy) yellow daylilies you often at first glance can't even tell it's there (but it subsequently shows up in hybridizing; Patrick Stamile referred to this as a "muddiness gene" though I doubt it's that simple).

A little mud is tolerable (especially for more "background" plants) if it is not too egregious, and the plant has some redeeming feature(s). (I have an orange daylily (whose name escapes me at the moment) which has awful mud, but it's out in the Back 40 and situated such that I never have to really see the mud (except when deadheading), but get the benefit of the splash of color.) At least some of the reblooming yellow irises that I have seen have mud in them; arguably the rebloom redeems the plant.

But there comes a point when too much mud destroys the garden utility of the bloom, I think. Beyond that, it's best to find some other cultivar (even going to some other species, if necessary), to get the desired color.

I have way too many iris nearing 600 to plant for effect.I plant with height in mind ,but that is it.
I have at least 44 iris arriving this week ,with 21 or so still to come.I am not even sure I have enough sod dug to accommodate them.
It is enough to get them planted these days!All the digging ,especially the sod,makes me very stiff and sore the day after.

My hats off to Tom for dividing all his iris.I am afraid mine will remain undivided.I am beginning to accept my limits of what is feasible.I still hand mow my nice size yard.
Digging up sod,mowing and planting are exercise enough.Lest I mention housework/ cooking and a 96 1/2 year old Mother to care for.

One good thing about the dry weather is that I don't have to mow lawn much this summer.

There is always a silver lining!

Ironically, because it IS the color most commonly thought of when someone says "iris", I have very few purple iris. And the majority of those I do have are LA's. If I do add more I am pretty sure most of those purples will be luminatas as I love them and, for some odd reason, they do really well in the southern heat.

I was on a gardening trip to England one time--2weeks long & Henry Mitchel was our 'expert'. He was great fun. One person was from CT & I was MA. We would ask about hardiness of plant & very often he would say 'perfectly hardy south of Philadelphia, which certainly didn't do much for us. Of course he knew that & there was a gleam in his eye. I have since read his books.

You were so lucky!

I'm not sure this is readable, but I've also enjoyed Henry Mitchell's writing, and saved this from a 1984 issue of House and Garden magazine.

I loved this column. I don't agree with all he said about color - these things are subjective - but certainly share the passion he had for iris.

Thank you very much, Sherry! I loved reading something new by Henry Mitchell.

Interesting that he argues for at least 25% yellows, warns against too many whites or dark irises, and advocates against too many reds and browns. (I dislike browns in general, and I have few red irises because of the mud. If "modern" red irises look muddy to me, I hate to think what they looked like back in his day.) I am tempted to count up the irises (or at least only the TBs) to see roughly how much of each color I have.

I also thought his comments about the old doctor's seedling interesting. I still have some old daylily seedlings of mine that I am loathe to give up (well, truth to tell, I am generally loathe to triage any of the daylily seedlings, but these have survived several triages now, and date back to 2005 or thereabouts).
Yes, I have better seedlings, but there is something about these 2 oldest seedlings.

One is a red with good color, but more importantly it has some degree of sunfastness (a problem with red and purple daylilies). Even though it is far superceded in terms of form and probably budcount by more modern cultivars, and the foliage is a bit coarse (it is a tetraploid), I'd honestly register the thing simply because the bloom generally opens well enough and has that good color (with a nice throat, and a tiny bit of a white wire rim) and the sunfastness. That it is relatively rust resistant is also a plus. (The reason that every year, I look at it and decide NOT to, is that one of the petals has a distressing tendency to sometimes "tongue" (like sticking your tongue out), which is a fault.)


Parentage is BAMBOO SPITFIRE x JUSTIN BRENT

The other seedling is a sometimes-polymerous diploid yellow, with a large flower. The reason I don't register THAT one is because that it is not highly polymerous, the bud count is low, it generally does not rebloom (maybe it did one year), and the flower size is disproportionate to the relatively short stalk. But yet... I like it.


Parentage is a previous seedling of mine (SPARKING OPAL x FOUR STAR) x STARRY DAY

It'll be interesting to see how long I end up holding onto various IRIS seedlings. You all have seen my few more recent ones, but I still have one of my first, dating back maybe around 20 years now... either from BUSY BEING BLUE x SECOND FIDDLE or it's reciprocal cross (there was landscape construction going on at the time and tags got lost or confused).

Love the yellow seedling Marilyn!

Lilli, Haven't seen you on the forum for a long time. How are you? Are you affected by the heat wave?

Hi Andrea,
I'm well thank you! I have been away from the forums a while and have just started catching up.
We have been rained on for over 6 months now and there is water everywhere. Good thing we are on a hill. So no, didn't really have a heatwave problem at any point last year.

Six months of rain?! Wow! Is that leading to rot problems in your iris?

Loved the article and hearing about this writer. It was like an Iris History lesson. Hmm, the color I most need added to my Iris Gardens is a grass green or crayola green or teal green or sea green. I just haven't found them yet They would replace some of my yellow irises with green names Lot of muddled Irises in that group, if I even really understand what muddled is. I do love those rare green Irises I do have. And some of them are olive in color and I think others would most likely say those are muddled but I consider them among my prize Iris possessions.
So, I used to make myself buy the rainbow. So when I bought Irises, I would buy a balanced number of red, yellow, blue, pink, green, white, blue, purple and throw in some browns and blacks as well. Eventually when my space began dwindling and my orders were small, I just started buying what appealed to me. Buying the rainbow did however, leave me with a pretty varied yard, color wise, during Iris season. I feel for all my gardening mistakes, this it is something I did right. As I really love variety and I have it.