Iris sibirica Perrys Blue - Siberian Iris

Iris sibirica 'Perry's Blue' offers graceful sky-blue flowers, lightly veined with dark blue, and tinged with white and golden yellow at the base of the petals. The flowers bloom in May-June. Appreciated for their delicate flowers and fine upright foliage, the so-called Siberian irises are beautiful plants for wetlands, unlike their cousins the German irises. They are also hardy and adaptable plants, thriving in good garden soil that remains moist in summer. Indispensable near water features, as long as the roots are not submerged in winter, they are perfectly suited to romantic, English, and even contemporary gardens.

The 'Perry's Blue' Siberian iris is a rhizomatous and deciduous perennial plant that forms upright clumps from spring onwards. It belongs to the Iridaceae family. It is one of the many cultivars obtained from Iris sibirica, native to central Europe, eastern Europe, and Turkey (but absent from Siberia), and I. sanguinea, found in China, Siberia, Japan, Manchuria, and Korea. This iris reaches a height of 80cm (32in), 1m (3ft) when in bloom, and the clump spreads over 50cm (20in). Its growth rate is moderate, slower than that of German irises. 'Perry's Blue' Siberian iris has an elegant upright habit in dense clumps. The foliage consists of long, narrow green-grey leaves. In late spring and early summer, the flower stems project above the foliage, bearing flowers with 3 sepals and 3 petals that arrange themselves and successively bloom from the top of the stem to the lower branches. They are a very bright sky-blue, marked with yellow and white at the throat and veined with dark blue. This iris propagates through rhizomes.

'Perry's Blue' is irreplaceable at the water's edge or simply in very moist soil. It can also be used in any non-arid garden. Its gracefulness is perfectly suited to romantic gardens, English gardens, and other mixed borders. It can be planted with summer snowflakes, camassia, poet's narcissus, montbretia, crinum, daylilies, astilbes, delphiniums, columbines, corydalis, phlox, asters, herbaceous peonies, and alchemilla in moist soil.

Did you know: The wild Siberian iris (Iris sibirica L.) is an endangered and protected species that must be respected. Horticultural Siberian irises are hybrids of different species in the Sibericae series (I. sanguinea, etc.). Their flowers are larger and come in various colours compared to the wild forms. Several hundred named cultivars are registered.