YELLOW WALKING IRIS (Trimezia martinicensis)

 

The flowers with a few baby plantlets forming on the stalks.

Here is a flowering plant that can add some sparkle to a tropical garden that is heavy in leafy vegetation.  I usually refer to it as the Yellow Central American Iris but the consensus on the internet seems to go with Yellow Walking Iris, so I have used it in the title.  When I think of walking Irises, I think of the Blue Flowered Walking Iris (Neomarica gracillis), which is a thicker leafed, Central American cousin also seen in Hawaii gardens, that has more of the "walking" attribute. 

Whole plant showing plantlets growing on flower stems

Walking, in the case of these Irises, is to bend their spent flowering stems down to the ground which allows the little baby plants, that sprout from the joints on the flower stems, to grow in the ground a few feet away from Mama plant.  It is these baby plants that form on the flower spikes that make this plant so easy to propagate and share with your friends.  It is a trick I learnt from the gardener of our local library.  At the time, there were about a dozen Yellow Walking Irises growing at the front of the library.  One day I noticed that the gardener had gathered a few handfuls of the baby plantlets from the Irises and stood them in a beautiful deep Chinese design bowl in the library.   These made an attractive green arrangement at the library checkout desk, while at the same time, all those little plantlets were rooting in the water.  After a few weeks they disappeared to be grown in other gardens.  Of course, you could just let the plant do that naturally in its own way, but the environment has to be right for the plants to grow.  Being able to get the babies rooted and then planted in a good loose media insures that.  This Iris can also be propagated by seed and also by dividing the rhizome and root clump.  I think growing the babies is by far the easiest method, plus you a tidying up the plant at the same time.

Plantlets that are starting to grow roots after sitting in water a few days

Yellow Walking Iris is a perennial plant that blooms all year round although it does seem to be more bountiful in Spring.  It likes lots of water but also needs good drainage.  Although it can survive full sun, it will look happier in partial shade.  It does like a rich soil so that it needs fertilizing in my sandy soil to stop the leaves bleaching out.  I have had no problems with pests on it except for the occasional bag worm hanging under the long leaves.  It does need its dead leaves and flower spikes cut off once in a while to keep the plant looking attractive.  The flowers only last one day and fold up by late afternoon but there will be other flowers on the spike to replace them next day.  The flower stalk holds up in a vase of water but remember the individual flowers will not be on show in the evening.

Several plantlets potted up together to form new planting.

Aloha