Here we've got some Dutch iris bulbs, the
botanical name is Iris Hollandica, they're
a wonderful spring flowering plant and
the bulbs can be planted any time from
autumn right through winter.  These bulbs
we're putting in a little bit late, and
if you look very carefully you'll see
that some of them are already wanting to
shoot, so we need to get these into a pot
as quickly as possible.  You can plant
them in the ground or in our case we're
going to put them in pots.  They are a
bulb that do like full Sun,  and they
don't like soggy wet soils.  You can leave
them in the ground, or in a pot for a
number of years.  If you are going to dig
them wait until the foliage has died
right back.  In a container you can plant
these bulbs fairly close together but
they do need to be about five
centimetres deep so planting is fairly
easy.  Simply dig a hole with your fingers,
get the bulb place it in the hole
backfill around it.  We'll do that with
the rest of them.  Dutch iris come in a
range of colours,
there's blues there's purples,  whites
and yellows and within that there's a
range of different blues as well. Once
you've planted the bulbs you will need
to water them in,  but you'll only need to
do that once really, and remember that
Dutch iris don't like to be in wet
conditions.
So after you've watered them in,  assuming
that the planting them in autumn through
winter,  you're probably not going to need
to water them again until you see really
good signs of foliage growth above the
soil level.
After the flowering is finished this is
the best time to use extra fertilizer on
your bulbs,  this will get them ready for
next year's growth.  So immediately after
flowering, apply some blood and bone or
bone meal,  or you can use any sort of
plant food,  and that will really get the
foliage going,  it will put energy back
into the bulbs, the bulbs will multiply
and you'll have great bulbs ready to
plant again next year.  In wet soil
Dutch iris will rot so don't plant them
in poorly drained soil.  That's it for
growing Dutch iris for more information
on a whole range of bulbs visit the
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