But, they don’t grow here

We have long admired the Aril iris, a group of dry-land species, mostly from Middle Eastern countries, which are renown for their ability to die quickly in wet, humid-summer climates.  Well, armed with our new crevice garden, we decided it was time to try our hand at these once more, focusing on what is known as Arilbred iris…aril species that have been crossed with more typical bearded iris. In our case, we focused on the 50/50 hybrids, which the vendor assured us would not have any chance in our climate. 

Despite our wettest year on record, here we are, 20 months after planting without a single loss. Here are a couple of photos from last spring, as we await the 2019 show (two center photos) just a few weeks away.  The crevice garden should look amazing for our Spring Open Nursery and Garden days…we hope you’ll come visit. The lesson…don’t believe anything you’re told unless you verify it yourself. 

If you’re interested in learning more, visit our friends at the Aril Iris Society

6 thoughts on “But, they don’t grow here”

  1. Well done, and beautiful flower! Excited to see it all in person, especially the crevice garden, I remember reading about it being built (& trying to plagiarize it to make my own mini one at home lol) Haven’t been to PDN in years and am planning on coming to the Spring open house so can’t wait to see all of the changes – speaking of changes, just now read the last newsletter and wanted to say congratulations to the Avents (regarding handing over the reigns to NCSU).

    Idk if anyone will even read or see this, but seeing the house / gardens / compound at PDN was a major inspiration for me and one of the main reasons I have since become obsessed with plants, which I am very grateful for. I was equally inspired / fascinated with the history of plant hunters like Mr. Avent / Raulston / Fairey / Schoenfield / etc, and living in NC am so glad places like JC Raulston Arboretum & JLBG exist! I also appreciate that they will continue to exist, due to the wise decisions / planning / foresight of those at the helm!

    To tie it back to the Iris post at top, if back in the day Tony Avent had just used conventional wisdom at the time, said ‘nah this just won’t grow here,’ and given up, we wouldn’t be aware of, much less able to mail order, all of the wonderful & bizarre plants that we now are.

    He instead did the opposite and traveled to the ends of the earth to find what he was looking for, and has since created not just a successful business, but also a very special place & community that we are all imo very fortunate to be a part of.

    So I just wanted to reach out and say thanks for both the inspiration and the plant obsession, both are very much appreciated!

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