Hello Mike!

Good to 'see' you here.

Another example is Batik....I had several that bloomed
as spoted plicatas one year...then reverted back to their familiar unsstable blotched selves.

Hi Shilty- My Batik put out a sport that was all plicata one year. I'm not a big purple plicata fan and I lopped it off and gave it away, so no idea if it reverted again or not with the next generation. From what I have read it is pretty common for Batik to do that. There's even one registered:

WHITE WITCH - (Roberta Plummer, 2000), S. white, purple plicata marking; style arms purple; F. white, purple haft and edge markings, dart at end of beard; beards yellow, white at end; slight sweet fragrance. Sport of Batik.

I wonder if there are others that regularly have pattern instabilities like that - perhaps some children of Batik have the trait?

Mike

I don't know if Batik, or any other BC, throwing an occasional partial or complete plicata bloom would even technically be considered a sport. I suspect the one to answer that would be Chuck Chapman or perhaps Keith Keppel, both of whom have a keen understanding of plicata genetics and all of its variations. BCs and chimeras are known to be unstable color patterns. Plicata expression would seem to be a "normal" manifestation of that instability.

Oh, mine wasn't just one bloom or partial bloom, that is common enough and no big deal with Batik. No, when mine sported it was an entire bloomstalk with every bloom on it a perfect white/purple plicata. There wasn't a BC bloom on it to be seen - not even partially. The rhizome was still connected to the main clump of Batik so I think that fits the requirement to be a sport. I see one or two blooms each year with a bit of instability in the color/pattern expression, but only once in 10 years has Batik done an entire stalk that was entirely different.

Mike

Same here, Mike, a whole row of them, straight from wholesale, bloomed plicata, and the next year, their old splotchy self. I assumed it was soil or weather that got their knickers in knots...

I also used to grow one called UNSTABLE GENE, I believe...
it never did the same iris twice....

But that's my point. Plicata blooms, either partial or total, are a fairly normal variation for Batik. Even when plicatas occur as a complete stalk, that same rhizome grown into a clump may very well revert to BC blooms as a result of the innate instability of BC genetics. I just don't know how that particular phenomenon fits into the definition of a "sport", or if it even does.

It's probably similar to SAs that bloom stalks with no SA appendages. Are those appendage-less stalks sports? Or are they just a normal expression of the instability of SA genetics? I'm guessing the latter.

I think if the plicata stalk continued to put out new rhizomes and they all came true to plicata and showed no broken color then it would be a true sport. If it was one random stalk who's increases reverted to Batik then it was probably just an anomaly. Many of the irises classed as sports of Sans Souci/Honorabile have been known to revert occasionally, but they are accepted as true sports. The only way to tell would be to separate the rhiz out and grow it for several years to see what the succeeding generations do.

Mike

All I can say is I had Iris's of every color of the rainbow and this year they are all appearing to be puple (dark purple). the neighbor across the street had a whole garen of yellow, whitre, lavendar and peach and last year they all came back as dark purple. So they do indeed change color even though I have no idea why. I have over 100 of them and they are all going to be purple based on what has already bloomed and the ones that are about to open. Help!!!

Sorry, you've got a very vigorous purple iris. The other have died or are growing big enuf to bloom again. Purple iris tend to be amongst the most vigorous.

Maybe our hair can turn white overnight but iris can't change colors!!!

I've had many dwarf beardeds die when I was still trying to grow the dwarfs in this climate. In cold winter climates many tall beardeds are not happy. If there is one that is, it takes over.

Iris do not turn different colors. Soil and weather play a part in color however. So does gardening. A vigorous grower will choke out some who are weaker plants. Beds left untended for years might seem to change to one color, However I had a very old friend who could not tend to her garden anymore. Her iris bed was several rhizomes deep, but still produced lots of lovely colors.
There will occasionally be sports, but in all my growing years(60) I have only seen this once. Years ago, trying to come up with a red iris, some people treated with colchicine, thinking to change color that way. There is still no true red iris.

I bought a house last summer and in the spring all the irises were a vibrant purple. There were no other colors mixed in. This year every single one that has bloomed is yellow. It appears to me that they did change colors.

Melody please go back and re read this entire post..Irises do not change colors..

Ummm...OK

Something that hasn't been mentioned is "bloom out" or a rhizome that makes no increases so it's history. There was no doubt as to what happened to my pale pink since it was by itself. One year of bloom and gone.

This year 'Sarah's Laughter' (yellow) bloomed. It's been 4-5 years since I saw a bloom of her. In fact she's traveled to the previous location of an orchid-lav. iris. About 4 feet away.

Each new rhizome growing out from the old one is an exact genetic copy.

Some iris will regularly skip a year in blooming.

Vigorous iris will hog the nutrients and prosper.

Iris will NOT change color.

Very early in my gardening years, I experienced the weak being crowded out by the strong.

My husband's grandfather was a big Iris fan. He had dozens upon dozens of cultivars, apparently. I don't know that he kept names, he just had many colors. We were given some shortly after moving into our first home. Of course I just stuck them all mixed up in one bed together, and the first year there were so many pretty colors. The second year there were still pretty colors, but it seemed like there were more white than the year before. You know where this is going. :p

We kept some of whatever that strong white Iris was - that's eventually all that was left. I once posted it on this forum and several people thought it looked like Gudrun, which seemed about right for the time period.

Anyway - I am much more careful about keeping some separation between my Irises these days. LOL

Wow really??? My eyes are just fine...more than likely what happened is a seed pod formed and the seeds were dropped down into the patch of purple iris..That seed pod grew into a iris that was never able to grow and bloom since all of the purple iris smothered it out.. Once you dug that area you gave new life to that little clump of ir. and a yellow one bloomed.. I would be willing to bet that the irises planted 120 years ago by the 1st female Dr is still blooming purple to this day...
If all irises reverted back to some other color..explain how we have irises from the 1800's still blooming the correct color today??

Thanks littlebit for your explanation. The home has been moved to a state monument location in Nv. I dug up all of Eliza Cook's bulbs. They are all planted at my present location in Palm Springs. I am hoping that I will get a purple color from those bulbs that have yet to bloom.

If they were purple then some of them should bloom purple, unless the purple have died.. Its really amazing how far iris rhizomes can travel.. I hope that the purples do bloom, because with irises that old..There is no telling what you have. I would love to see a picture...

It is not genetically possible for you to have a bed of purple iris turn into yellow ones. The most reasonable explanation would be that there were always yellow iris in the bed but they did not bloom, and the conditions at the original site favored the purple. Moved to a new location, conditions favored the yellow, and the purple became the weaker and did not bloom (or if they really hated the place, may now be deceased). A rhizome has a set of genes (blueprint for its physical expression) and a vegetative increase will always have the same genes, unless they were modified by modern gene splicing techniques, which was not the case here. The fact that these rhizomes came from a very old bed, (you really don't know what they looked like when the doctor planted them so long ago), supports the theory that the purple cultivar had plenty of time to established itself as the strong dominant, so you never saw any yellows until the playing field was changed. Enjoy the yellows and get yourself some new purples.

Interesting reading this. My front garden is full of purple irises. They have flowered a wonderful purple every spring for years. 2 years ago I transplanted a couple to a new bed in my back garden - and I was shocked to discover the flowers were yellow, daffodil yellow. I am completely mystified, confused and really surprised.

Sounds like you had a yellow rhizome in the bed with your purple and moving them gave the yellow one room to grow and bloom

My irises 2017 and the same irises 2018

I dont know why, but irises CAN change color. I have it happening to mine. I dont know why it happens but it does. Maybe they arent being properly taken care of or something. Attached below is an example, my dark purple ones from last year are burgundy this year.

Your pictures show that this is not the same iris that changed colour, but a different variety of iris. Not only is the colour different, but also the shape and substance. The purple one has rather flat and fairly horizontal falls with tightly frilled standards of good substance. The red one has turned down falls and wider and thinner standards. And even the beard has changed colour. In the posts above many scenarios are mentioned for how one iris can appear in the spot of another, but this is simply not the same iris.

It is the same iris. Obviously the color is different. That's the whole point of this thread. Leaf sizes look different due to angle. Trust me. This is the same iris. There has never been an iris this color in my garden until this year. Before that it was purple and yellow irises.

Do you have a picture of the whole bed? Are they all the reddish colour?

They arent blooming anymore. Its It's always been a bed of yellow with a Few dark purple.

And were they all red this year?

HU they are not the same iris.. Irises dont change colors or revert.. What has happened is a seed pod ripen, the seeds germinated and the red iris grew... Or at one time a teeny tiny iris rhizome was there and it just now got big enough to grow and bloom.. I have grown irises for well over 25 years... They dont change colors.. Now if round up is involved it will fade wash out the colors..but in no way did your black iris change into a red one..

A red iris was never planted. Has never existed in this garden. Roundup is a possible thing that could've happened

There are no more dark purple. All the ones that were purple are now red. Explain how EVERY purple iris has somehow suddenly disappeared and these red ones

They didn't.. the red was there all along and grew strong enough to completely take over the purple iris.. It might have been a seed that germinated but your iris didnt change colors! If it had been round up it would have been washed out... not completely changed.. Seperate them out.. replant every single iris separately and I can promise your purple iris will start to grow and bloom..

I have purple irises that bloom every couple years and this year - out of nowhere yellow irises sprouted up in a nearby - but different - area of the garden. I didn’t plant them. so could what I’m seeing be some form of genetic variation? All the new irises are yellow, no variation. My older purples were mostly the same as well.

I would love to see a picture of the yellow iris and of the purple iris. They dont change colors... The best way I had it explained to me by a well know iris hybridizer was ... You get up one morning and a black cat is sitting on your driveway.. Several mornings this black cat is sitting there.. One morning a yellow cat is sitting in the exact same spot.. You dont think the black cat changed colors.. You know its a different cat! The same with irises.. If this is an area that never ever ever had irises growing in it, then it could possible be seeds. Or if could be where tiny tiny rhizomes were left in the ground and finally got big enough to bloom..

Well, no I dont think these are the same plants, I think they are "daughter" plants. But then again not sure, because the leaves are different than the purple ones too. Could that be possible? It's just so interesting that all the new ones are completely yellow. I have pics of the new ones, but not the old purples - well I probably can dig through old photos and find some. I'll be back with pics!

Did you plant anything new in the area with the yellow irises the last few years? That can be a source of new plants, I find. I once bought a shade plant, I forget which, at a nursery where they also had double bloodroot. I saw it come up in the pot, so I know where it came from. The other plant died, so if I had not noticed the bloodroot before I planted them, I would have magically had a double bloodroot from 'nowhere' the next year. If there was a tiny piece of iris root in a pot, that might have been the source of your yellow irises. The only way you could have yellow daughter plants from purple irises, would be via seed. Not even very likely, but not impossible. There could also have been a piece of root in new soil you brought in, an animal might have dropped it there, a person may have lobbed something in your garden. But no genetic variation of the same purple plants. Just doesn't happen that way.

My iris dilemma, approx. 14 - 15 years ago, on a visit to Iris City, Primm Springs, TN, we bought an iris named "Skating Party." A vigorous iris with large, bright white blossoms, consistently measuring 7" or even 8" across. After 3 years competing (unfairly) with an aggressive Holly, it was

transplanted to a 12' ideal garden plot, where it flourished. Divided when crowded, shared with friends and neighbors, ultimately the rhizomes moved to their current location, two small (4' x 5') plots. That was 4 years ago. Consistently blossoming vigorously, seasons '17, '18 and '19'. Last year, early/mid-May, we were gifted with a single rhizome/flowering stem from Iris City, named "Harvest of Memories." Bright yellow. Planted in one corner of our bed, approx. 2.5 to 3 feet from the opposite bed. This season, May 2020, only one bed has blossomed, that opposite the "Harvest of Memories" iris - and every one of the many blossoms is from pale yellow to bright yellow! Not a bright white in the lot. Thoughts (I did not divide the rhizomes in 2019)

I will send pictures when I figure out how.

Odd, and I really have no answer to that. I have had both those iris for years and they have both consistently bloomed well every year. Even years like this when we had a late hard freeze. Many of my iris are blooming misshapen or off color, but not those 2. I have some purples that look almost white, like I had sprayed with weed killer, but I assume due to freeze.

I have a large bed of iris that have consistently bloomed a pale blue/ lavender shade. This year after the entire bed was in full bloom, the temperature dropped and we had steady, wet weather for a week. The iris changed color from pale blue/lavender to a deep blue/purple. It's still in the same color family, but it's still a very noticeable change. I'm attributing the change in color to the change in temperature and the change in rainfall. Anyone else eexperience this?

Those who say that an iris doesn't change color are just plain ignorant. I have transplanted irises from beds that have been the same color (yellow or burgundy) for over 10 years. I put them in locations on my property with no other irises nearby and they always bloom pale lavender. I think it must be soil pH or something similar.

• Pale lilac irises ladt year. No digging, no new plants. All but this one bloomed traditional purple and yellow. Lost all my black ones -same thing. Suddenly they all look the same. I have an extensive colour collection. None are the right colour this year.

I have had one bed for years. in the fall of 2017, I dug up, raked, tilled and pulled out all rhizomes from this bed.. When I replanted it, I replaced the 1st two rows with Mtbs.. Look what popped up this year... Had I replanted TBs it might have gotten missed and I might have thought my iris changed colors... That small piece was there all along and just continued to grow... This year it will get dug up and probably tossed...

Just ran across this article that further explains that irises can not change or revert colors.. https://theamericanirissociety.blogspot.com/2019/09/three-myths-about-bearded-irises.html?fbclid=IwAR3AG0SVnv4KKpoKMjs3tnCvp9PariBDekgnlHhggAhSgIMwnj9FHhvlvJ4

Ned, your picture shows not the same iris in a different colour, but two different varieties. The shape of the upright petals, the standards, is different, with the lilac ones being more frilly and bent in, while the purple ones are longer and stay open. The shape of the falls is also different. The purple buds look more pointy than the rounder lilac ones. The papery sheaths that were around the bud of the lilac one look whiter, less 'dirty' than with the purple one. There may also be a subtle difference in the colour of the leaves. The purple ones look like an old Iris germanica hybrid, the lilac one looks like there is a lot of Iris pallida in it. How the purple one got into that bed, or into your garden, I have no idea, but these are not the same plant with different colours.

@littebit63 The article you shared said that Iris beds may change color due to Hybridization...The original plant dropping seeds that sprout in a different color, which would be one of the original "parent plants" before hybridization. I have wondered if that is what happened in my iris beds (5 of them) which are changing from lavender to yellow, as I got the plants from my Grandpa 30 years ago, who was into hybridizing plants. I wonder if that is what some people in this thread are seeing?

Returning from a vacation 12th of June my purple irises were in full bloom ...however I noticed it sprouted 2 "unmistakable" yellow irises they haven't bloomed yet...this is the first time I've seen this color...is this rare?

When I bought my home eight years ago, I had beautiful varieties of bearded iris in lavender, purple, white and burgundy/yellow. All the lavenders and purples are now danger yellow and the burgundy/yellows are a washed out colour. I have never introduced new irises, used roundup, or even augmented the soil. It's so disappointing! And for the naysayers, please stop telling us that irises do not change colour.

Yep, they change color. Just add wood ash to remove purple and get yellow. It seems to be related to pH...like cooking cabbage with vinegar changes its color. I have had it happen with amoena pattern where the standards go white without the purple pigment making it peach and the pinky purple falls go yellow. I am going to repot a stem that flowered this year as yellow in acidic soil and see if I can coax back the pinky-purple pigments that I prefer!

In 2023 I broke up a large (4 ft across) mat of unmaintained Iris that had some (6 or so) purple flowers and little else. I moved the best rhizomes and they all produced yellow flowers. My guess is that I selected the yellows when I selected the largest rhizomes. Now I have multiple Iris mats, all yellow and they bloom spring and fall. I dug out two of them (fall 2025) to stop the aggressive spread, they don't share well. I don't think a single plant changes color. I think the offspring seed pods are a reverted, naturalized color and they strangle the parent hybrid to death. I intervened and selected the dominant, new to me, plant (yellow). Maintain your Irises and thin out the new plants if you want to keep the hybrid.