I have mentioned before that I still adhere to the traditional view that stripey hafts, the area of brownish stripes at the top of the falls, either side of the beard (the haft) are undesirable. This is partly because they are common in the wild species and plant breeders have tried for decades to remove this primitive trait. Before you ‘tut’ at the artificiality of this, most ‘improvements’ of plants and animals have been due to people setting standards to aim at. Dogs are improved since they have had some wolf characteristics removed and are less likely to eat your grandmother while you are out chatting up woodcutters in your red coat.

But what about when you go the other way and try and make those stripes spread all over the falls? ‘It’s no Secret’ does this and it is difficult to decide what colour the stripes are, but as the edge of the falls are grape purple I am inclined to say the stripes are white. I am also not sure if it is ‘WOW’ or ‘BLEURGH’ but you can’t ignore it. I am glad the standards are neutral so all your attention goes to the falls.

This is another Schreiner iris and was introduced in 2005 along with ‘Joyful Skies’ (last post). Like most other iris with very flared (horizontal) falls, this one does not grab you from across the garden but when you do see it you have to have a close look.

iris its no secret. schreiners iris