IRIS NADA

Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park

Tallahassee, Florida

Easter Weekend

Iris ‘Nada’ (Butterfly Iris) – This is a beautiful evergreen plant can form large open clumps.  It has fans of 2 inch wide by 18 inch long medium green leaves that arise from slender rhizomes and gracefully arch back towards the ground.

In late winter through mid spring (Feb-May) appear the 2 foot tall intricately branched flower stems bearing 25 to 50 delicate nearly white flowers. The 2 1/2 to 3 inch wide flowers are a very pale lavender color with purple spots and large golden yellow markings on the crests of the fall petals, no markings on the smaller flattened bifidly divided banner petals and petaloid styles that are lavender and lay flat from the base but are nearly white where they rise up and are dissected at the tips.

Plant in cool, moist soil in filtered shade inland, morning sun along the coast. Hardy to about 20 F and can be moved indoors to protect from frost in cooler climates. Snails seem to like this plant so protection is required to maintain the attractive foliage. This iris was hybridized by renowned southern California nurseryman Jimmy Giridlian in the early 1950′s. It is a great plant that not only persists in the garden but increases to form large stands. It is sometimes labeled as a selection of Iris japonica but Giridlian noted in his 1952 Oakhurst Gardens catalog that it was a hybrid between Iris wattii and I. japonica.

That it has become a garden favorite can be attested to by its mention in Victoria Padilla’s book “Southern California Gardens” (1961) where she writes “One of his [Giridlian] earliest introductions was an iris cross that he called ‘Nada’ which, because of its evergreen foliage and dainty orchidlike quality of its numerous flowers, has become one of the most popular iris of its kind in California and in the southern states.”