Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Reader Janette Boley asks for help combatting iris rot.

When the weather’s hot and humid, bearded iris rhizomes have a tendency to turn to mush. When the temperatures hit the 90s, you should not feed your irises. If you water at all, you should water carefully–deeply, but infrequently. Never allow water to stand on iris rhizomes. Water in the morning so that the rhizomes can dry out in the sun. And do not bury the rhizomes under the dirt or mulch them. Irises can survive the summer with very little water, although their will yellow and turn brown. They’ll come back again in the fall.
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They’re not supposed to set seeds.

I bought ‘Bangkok Yellow’ several years ago from Stokes Tropicals and planted it in the south border where it languished in the English ivy. Last fall, I decided to give it a better chance and moved it closer to the other tropical plants where it would get more sun and I’d remember to water it. Since then, it’s thrived.

As canna go, it’s fairly compact, only two to three feet tall. The leaves are pinstriped with a light yellowed white and so far it has better bug and wind resitance than the other canna nearby; so, it’s leaves remain crisp and neat. The flower is a clear yellow, with white stripes.

I grow it in ground, but I’ve read that it’s a great water canna. It goes by several other names, ‘Nirvana’ and ‘Striped Beauty’.

Zanthan Gardens History

2000-06-22
Ordered 3 canna online from Stokes Tropical plants.

A dwarf canna with foliage that is outstanding — green leaves with white striping. It’s red bud opens into a clear yellow flower with white throat. Grows very well in water. Amazing Canna that has to be seen to be believed.

2001-06-03
First flower ever on the canna which I bought in the mail. It is a clear lemon yellow. One plant is large, one small, and one died.

2003-01-21
Since the freeze froze back the canna, move it from the south border to square 2. (Both kinds. The ‘Bangkok Yellow’ and the unknown kind from the RHS seeds which hasn’t bloomed yet). Hoping that additional sun and water will improve performance. Dig in a lot of composted horse manure from the last haul from DF.

2003-05-28
First flower this year.

2004-03-29
Replanted the canna that I’d left in water in a pot all winter. They had grown a lot of roots and since I’m a little late getting them in they look a bit peaked compared with the ones I transplanted right away. Still this is a good strategy for increasing them.

2005-08-27
The sun and triple-digit temperatures make this canna unhappy when it’s not in a pond setting. My other cannas are green, but these want a lot more water than I’m prepared to give them. They’re surviving and perk up whenever it rains. However their leaves are brown. They are not thriving. They look as miserable in this heat as I do.

2006-08-26
There are two small groups of canna left. Not a single canna flowered this year. I dug up the ones that got the most sun (south of ‘French Lace’). There were only four left out of a huge bunch a couple of years ago. They have been struggling all summer. I’m not sure they’re large enough to nurse back to health. I should have done this earlier but then this miserable summer has been full of “should haves”.

2007-05-28
Cannas like Austin’s wet years better.

Canna ‘Bangkok Yellow’. 2007-05-28.

2008-05-22
First flower on the one in the west square, not the pond.

2008-06-04
Raccoons jumped on the pond netting, snapping the canna stalks just flowering and breaking one of the new clay pots that survived the storm.

2009-04-20
Fed all the pond plants including the canna that’s not in the pond yet.

2009-06-20
First flower: canna ‘Bangkok Yellow’. Now in pond.

2010-07-16
One plant in the west square which didn’t get dug up is growing well. Finally put the rest of the cannas back into the pond. I thought they were dead but they began sprouting after all of the rain earlier this month.

Everyone who visits my garden in April or May is stopped dead in their tracks by Acanthus mollis. It’s so big. And it’s floral spike is bizarre and somewhat menacing.

Acanthus mollis is not really a good landscape plant in Austin, although it can be useful if you have a very shady site. It needs lots of water. As soon as the temperatures reach the 90s, it wilts and looks about as attractive as cooked spinach. Once the summer gets really hot, it fades away leaving a big hole in the border design. But when temperatures cool off in the fall, it’s back again. Fall and winter (if it’s not too cold) are it’s best seasons. In spring, the leaves are often ravaged by spring cankerworms and whatever beetles are about.

It’s one tough plant, though, and keeps coming back despite my neglect. People in more temperate climate consider it a pest.

2003-05-09. Acanthus mollis. Austin, Texas. (zone 8)

Well, the promise of rain went unfufilled, despite dark low clouds, and thunderous rumblings in the sky these last two days. Today the clouds cleared off and it got hot and then hotter. Austin broke the previous high temperature of 92 degrees with a 96 degree high. All the flowers that looked so spring like yesterday withered from the shock. Even the sun-loving tomato plants were caught off guard. No rain in the forecast for two more weeks at least.

I fell in love with tall bearded irises the first time I saw a photo of ‘Seakist’. The photo made me send off for Schreiner’s Iris Catalog and then I fell in love with a dozen more varieties of iris. I couldn’t afford ‘Seakist’ that first year or even the second year. But when the price fell to $15.00 a rhizome, I was determined to have it, even though it was the most I’d ever paid for a bulb of any kind.
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This week the Lady Banks rose is doing a perfect job of hiding my neighbor’s clothesline from view. I bought this rose in a gallon pot three years ago for $8.95 at Barton Springs Nursery. It’s doubled in size each year and is now about eight feet tall and twice as wide. I planted it about five feet from a chain link fence to give it plenty of room, which it’s going to need. The thornless canes are very flexible and easy to train.

The leaves are small, glossy and bright green. The small double flowers bloom in bunches like bridesmaid’s nosegays. They are warm buttery yellow. Flowers on this variety, ‘Lutea’, which is common in Austin, are scentless. The Lady Banks rose blooms but once a year, but then so do azaleas and pear trees and no one faults them for that.

Update: 2005

I’m very sad to report that this beautiful rose died in the hard freeze we had in December 2004. None of the other roses was affected.

Iris albicans surprised me this week.
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Sunday was clear and sunny and almost hot. The temperatures reached the high 70s and the men rowing and jogging along Town Lake had doffed their shirts. The car was so hot inside that we turned on the air conditioning.

This weekend I was busy noting numerous first flowers: the redbud, the viola (from seed), the ‘Trevithian’ daffodils, and the grape hyacinths. Several bluebonnets were flowering. The ‘Ice Follies’ and ‘Quail’ narcissus and the summer snowflakes were in full flower. The smaller Mexican plums were just beginning to bloom. And the Bridal Wreath spiraea and the Lady Banksia rose were covered in small buds.

Then Monday dawned drizzly and cold, as most of February has been. Around 5PM, AJM called me from North Austin to say it was sleeting. I went outside and it was sleeting here too. I moved the potted plants back inside, but there wasn’t much else I could do. I was completely unprepared for what followed.

The Big Freeze (a photo gallery).

The scent of paperwhites ushers in the New Year. I can’t stand the scent of the modern paperwhites, ‘Ziva’ and ‘Galilee’, but I’ve love the scent of their tazetta relative, Narcissus tazetta v. italicus. It is the scent of the first flower of the New Year.

I had always thought that N. italicus had a lovely, citrus-y scent. But over Christmas, when JQS was working at my desk, he said, “Mom, do you smell airplane glue or something?” I came over concerned and then laughed. “It’s just the flowers.”

If you don’t like the scent of paperwhites, try growing Narcissus tazetta v orientalis (the Chinese Sacred Lily) instead. It is scented with orange essence. I always buy bulbs to force and plant them out in the garden afterward where they come back year after year.

In this photo, the N. italicus are on the left and the Chinese Sacred Lily on the right. In my garden the N. italicus grow on stalks 20 to 24 inches tall, the Chinese Sacred Lily on stalks 12 to 14 inches tall.

The foliage of N. italicus is a much deeper green than the gray-green paperwhites, the strappy leaves are almost an inch wide. They grow straight and tall in the fall and finally flop over. Although they are my first narcissus to bloom, the leaves are the last to disappear in the spring. Sometimes it is May before I can divide them.

I always plant them where I can see them through a window from inside the house. Then even on a miserably cold day like today, I can enjoy the garden.

In Other People’s Gardens

I don’t really know if my bulbs really are Grand Primo as they were in the garden when I arrived. Mine don’t look anything like the photo at Old House Gardens.

However, mine do look like the Grand Primo pictured in this photo from the Stephen F. Austin State University. Notice how the cup is much smaller and a paler lemon yellow. Also the petals are slimmer and more pointed, often twisting back.

Although the same photo is enlarged here and these flowers do not have as narrow tapering petals as mine.

Update: February 25, 2004
I’ve corrected this post because I determined that I had two different Narcissus tazetta growing in my garden. For more information, see A Tale of Two Narcissus

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