Add Unbeatable Colour With Winter Iris

You don’t need to wait until spring to enjoy the sight and scent of iris in bloom. Select the right species and you will have unbeatable petal power from November until March – both outdoors and in – says Graham Rice

- Graham Rice

AN iris that flowers in the middle of winter? Sounds a little too good to be true, doesn’t it. However, there are two species that fit the bill – along with a select group of invaluable varieties to provide intrepid winter colour and unexpected cut flowers. What’s more, they are all tough and easy to grow.

Available to buy now from good garden centres, these iris originate in warmer climates than ours – north Africa, Turkey, the eastern Mediterranean and even Syria. Yet they seem perfectly happy in the UK’s colder, wetter winters, opening an abundance of large, prettily patterned flowers over many winter months.