Courtesy This Lousiana Iris is blooming violet and yellow in the Tyler Rose Garden’s IDEA Garden. Louisiana irises are showing blooms of all colors, shapes and sizes, along with other blooming plants.

Come out to the IDEA Garden in the Tyler Rose Garden and see this beautiful purple Louisiana iris and a bounty of other beautiful blooming plants.

Winter hung around far too long and we wondered if spring would ever come. But come it has, and how beautiful! Our gardens are absolutely rapturous. Blooms of all colors, shapes and sizes abound everywhere. Please come and take a look.

Louisiana iris abounds in swamps and moist places from the Texas Gulf Coast to Florida. Louisiana may claim the title, but they grow in all of the Gulf Coast states. I remember seeing huge areas covered with the native purple ones, and Daddy used to bring Mama a huge bouquet of them on her birthday every year.

This huge lovely bloom is definitely not straight out of the swamp. It is a hybrid. People love to cross and re-cross irises of all kinds, and hundreds of colors exist. Many public gardens across the South offer great plantings of these beautiful irises. If you can, go to Briarwood, La., to see many varieties of these Louisiana irises. Briarwood is near Saline, La., in the middle part of the state. The garden is a haven of native plants, including these irises.

If you don’t have Louisiana irises, you may want to procure some. They do like lots of water and they work marvelously around a pond. They will grow at the edge of the pond and even a few inches into the water, or they will do well in a regular yard setting with good watering. They need sun but will take a little shade.

 

Dee Bishop is a Smith County Master Gardener. She writes about plants growing within the Tyler Rose Garden.