Nola's Iris Garden - YouLookFab Forum

Nola's Iris Gardens are in the east foothills but farther north on a windy mountain road called Sierra Road. They are only open in April and May, and this year I realized that I didn't have the usual spring email from them. I did get an email eventually saying they'd had a technical glitch. We had some re-landscaping done two years ago and I'm not happy with some of the results and I thought of irises: the deer and rabbits and other critters pretty much leave them alone. And they are drought and bug tolerant.

Nola's is a fun place to visit in early spring. I don't know if they were open this year, but they offered a discount for having made a mistake, so I ordered 2 dozen bulbs. They came the day the August heat wave started, so we held off for almost two weeks before planting them. I even got some surprise bonuses.

So thought you'd like a visit--I certainly needed one in the last couple of weeks ago.These are two visits from 2007 and 2011 or 12. Before re-landscaping I found some of the older bulbs that had been shaded out so I replanted them--I put them all in pots, but time for new bulbs.

1-4 2007
5-8 2011 I think
9-10 next to the back fence.

I ordered several different varieties including some repeaters. I have replanted the older ones into better spots, and now look forward to spring.

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3 years ago

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

How refreshing to see these lovely flowers amidst our hectic smoky surroundings. I hope you get there again next April! Glad your own irises are doing so well

slim cat

Veteran

Beautiful pictures! I miss blue sky and full bloom of flowers. The irises look pretty .

Runcarla

Iris are garden workhorses, and drought tolerant. Rabbits (the bane of my garden) leave then alone. You can leave a tuber on pavement, and it will grow! (Not really, but close!). Thanks for sharing your throwback pics, MM.

I got #1 at a church fund raiser/perennial sale, and #2 at a YMCA fundraiser that had a plant table. A few tubers have multiplied and now there are iris throughout the garden.

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Jules

Lovely photos (you too Runcarla!)
I have some blue flag (a small, native to North America iris) I need to dig up and divide this season as it hasn't flowered well the past couple of years. I am very tempted to order some black variety of iris but I don't even really have room for bulbs I already have coming - lots of digging up to do this fall! It's my first time having a mature garden where many plants have outgrown their space and are competing visually and spacewise in my small city front yard. This took about 5 years from when we first took out the lawn to have an English style garden instead. I can't take credit for the original planting as I hired a neighbour who is a garden whiz, but I am good at maintenance and feel more confident about what I am doing now. It's a good problem to have I guess

JAileen

We have a lot of different varieties of iris. A friend gave us a lot of them, when she divided hers. We had simple yellow and purple ones when we bought the house, and then my husband ordered the pale pink ones in the last photo. Most of ours are along a rock wall, which doesn’t get much water. They look nice with the other perennials we have there - Russian sage, yarrow, lavender, cat mint, and purple coneflowers.

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Bonnie

MsMavin: Your yard looks fab.Your are inspiring me to plant iris this fall. I'm going to check to see if Nola Iris Garden has a website.
Runcarla: I didn't know that rabbits leave iris alone. Now I want to plant some.
JAileen: What a nice selection of iris. I want to plant them all.

Cardiff girl

I love bearded irises but they do not love my heavy clay or damp conditions so I find Siberian irises are better for me .Yours look absolutely gorgeous,paticularly the blue ones.

MsMaven

Bonnie, Nola's website. They have just shipped the last orders for 2020. I suggest you sign up and they'll send you an email with available irises for next spring.

http://www.walking-p-bar.com/shopsite/

I ordered yesterday and it went through for this year. I guess I just got in at the right time. I'm looking forward to planting iris for spring bloom.

Barbara Diane

I didn’t know that Irises came in so many colors. Now I want the dark purple type.

We have pale blue? Purple? that survive benign neglect. They were in our backyard when we moved in.
Critters do tend to eat the blooms.

Anonymous

Love irises! I used to like to look at the iris catalogues my parents had, because I liked seeing all the variety!

Joy

So beautiful. I love the perfume of iris. We are looking for a place with sun to move some iris plants that came with the house. These are nothing exotic but bloom in that time between spring and early summer when not much is blooming.

MsMaven: Iris arrived two days ago and I planted them today. I ordered 15 plants and placed them in groups of three like they suggested. I'm so excited to see them bloom next spring.

Bonnie--so glad you were able to order them in time. All mine are now showing new growth, so I'm excited too. Some in groups of 3 and a few solos by the relatively new rocks and dry creek. I'm anxious to see how that turns out. Not sure if this was Nola's suggestion or someone else's.

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