Monty Don shares ‘important’ tip for planting irises to ensure they have ‘good flowers’

Gardeners' World: Monty Don provides advice on sowing peas

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On the latest episode of Gardeners’ World, Monty Don could be seen revamping the dry garden at Longmeadow. This involved removing most of the plants and adding in stone. The garden included Mediterranean plants from South Africa, California, Chile and Australasia.

All these plants like maximum sunlight, can cope with drought conditions and need “poor soil”.

A lot of the plants Monty was planting were recycled and had been in the garden before.

One of the plants the 66-year-old was replanting in the dry garden was irises.

The gardening expert said: “For iris to flower well, they really must have a summer bake.

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“Yesterday I added a lot of grit. You may not be able to see it, you should be able to hear it.

“That is now really gritty. Because it’s gritty, it will drain and if you’ve got heavy soil, it’s really worth investing in some horticultural grit if you’re going to grow bearded irises.”

Monty said he wasn’t sure what variety of iris he had but he believed they were a “shade of blue”.

However, he said when gardeners plant them, it’s important to “be aware” of how they grow.

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Monty showed viewers the rhizome and the roots of the plant.

He continued: “The important thing is not to bury the rhizome.

“It’s that that needs the summer baking, and then it will produce really good flowers.

“As long as these roots are below the surface. It’ll be completely happy.”

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When planting, gardeners need to make a slight trench and direct the rhizome at the sun.

The plant will be “barely in the ground” with the roots just anchoring the plant to the ground.

There’s no need to cut the leaves back.

Monty added: “The time when you do that is after they flower when you’re moving them and you have really tall leaves because the wind catches them.

“They rock them and it rips them out of the ground before they’ve had a chance to establish.”

Monty checked the rhizomes of some of the irises he was planting.

If they’re a bit “squeegee”, he suggested cutting that part off as it’s contributing “absolutely nothing” to the plant.

Gardeners’ World is available to stream on BBC iPlayer

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