Top Ten Bearded iris

Bearded irises combine a dazzling rainbow of colours with exceptional cold hardiness and a tolerance of most sunny sites, says Graham Rice

- Graham Rice

MANY plants are said to have flowers in a rainbow of colours, but fail to live up to the promise. Bearded irises, both tall and tiny, are one of the few flowers for which a rainbow really is a reality – although it’s fair to say that true reds are scarce.

However, there’s more. Not only do bearded irises come in every rainbow colour, but some also come with two or three rainbow colours in the same flower.

Tall and dwarf 

Bearded irises get their name from the fluffy orange or yellow hairs in the throat of the flower. They’re also sometimes called flag irises because, in full flower, they look a little like flags on a flagpole.

Because there are so many varieties of these popular flowers, they’re divided into six groups according to their height and the size of their flowers – from tall bearded (TB) at over 27½in (70cm) in height down to miniature dwarf bearded (MDB) at 8in (20cm) or shorter. Here, I discuss the tallest and the shortest.

Those dazzling flowers 

To help make bearded irises easier to describe, we need to know the names for the three main parts of the flowers. There are the standards, which are the three petals in the centre of each flower that are held more or less upright. Then there are the falls, below the standards, which are the three petals that droop down or are held out sideways. Finally, there are the beards at the base of each fall.

6 award winning tall bearded irises