InTouch Magazine Articles Archive

Issue 19, June 2008

Gardening This Month

By Patricia Jordan. Author of "The Cyprus Garden" and "The Potted Garden"

June already, and the spring flowers have come and gone. I wonder what your favourites are. I always look forward to the irises. They are such good value for money and just love the climate here. The first ones to appear are Iris arabicum. Their leaves form fan-shaped clumps and are quite short in height. The flowers are pure white with little yellow beards and open, depending how sheltered your garden is, from mid-March until mid-April.

They are quickly followed by Iris germanica, whose flower stems tower above the spear-shaped leaves. The flower buds always remind me of flamingo heads and when they open up a delicate perfume is released.
If you are lucky enough to have some of the hybrids then they will come along after that in a myriad of colours, each flower head only open for a couple of days at most. They all bulk up quite quickly making a reasonable clump size, which after about 3 years you can begin to split up.

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