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Just planted a water iris

Anybody else here grow any? The information I found online was pretty contradictory as far as what kind of soil they prefer, but everybody did agree that mostly what they need is lots of water. So I kind of tossed a bit of everything I have into a pot (regular potting soil, moss peat, sand, gravel, and a little leftover sphagnum, and then filled it up with water until it was standing in a couple of inches.

We'll see how it does, I guess!
 
I have a lot of irises I grow as marginal plants in my pond. I have Siberian irises, Japanese irises, a Louisiana Iris and an Iris versicolor. Do you know what kind your water iris is, since a lot of different species could fall under that name? If not it doesn’t matter, all mine grow about the same and I treat them all alike, they just look a bit different.

Since I put my pots in a pond I may do things a bit differently but when I plant mine I make a soil sandwich (mmmm munchies…) using gravel, kitty litter and boring old dirt. I put a layer of gravel on the bottom of the pot to keep smaller particle things from leaking out. Then add on top a layer of cheapo, non-scented, dollar-store kitty litter because when it is wet it becomes clay and holds moisture well plus keeps the soil added later from leaking out too. Then add some dirt. I usually use whatever crappy, low nutrient, dirt I dig up in the yard because I don’t want to add a lot of nutrients to the water with the soil and possibly get more algae. I plant the roots in this layer and then top off the dirt with a little bit of kitty litter again and then cover it all with gravel on the top of the pot. Then I run a bit of water through it to get some of the dust from the gravel and kitty litter out and then sit it in the water wherever I want and *try* to get the top of the pot and the plant’s crown level near the surface of the water…but usually it is submerged a bit and is fine.

Depending on your particular Iris, the sphagnum and peat may be unnecessary but I think there may be some iris which prefer acidic marshes/bogs and I doubt it would hurt the other irises anyways since some people use those materials with their standard potting soil mixes too.
 
They're heavy feeders, put some 10-10-10 on them before they break dormancy and after they flower. My buddy is an iris grower!
 
Thanks for the tips!

I have no idea what kind it is, the tag on the pot just said "water iris." The picture showed a pretty typical blue-purple iris.
 
One of my other irises started blooming today. <3 The water iris hasn't even come up, and my native iris tenax are doing well but haven't sent up any flower stalks yet. It's early still though, so I'm hoping to get flowers out of all of them. This guy that flowered today is an unknown, the nursery said their grower had come by it without any ID, so nobody knows what exactly it is, but whatever it is, it's pretty.

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