If you don't mind them spreading everywhere (which I don't since we have lots of woodsy areas along a creek) then they are very pretty.

Don't need to do anything special for them.

They make me happy when I seem them blooming their little heads off.

marie

The leaves have turned a yellow color. Should I just plant them along the side of my house (rather than in the front bed) and cut them down to the rhizome, so they can grow more freely?

Dear I.K. Flowers: The yellow flag irises (iris pseudocorus) in my ditch also have yellowish leaves in the spring - this is natural! Later in the summer, the leaves will be green all over. Not sure why but my clump now 4 years old, has never grown beyond about 12 inches across. Hardly what I consider invasive. But Canadian winters are colder - maybe this keeps it under control.

It also wouldn't hurt to give them a "hair cut" by cutting the leaves back to about 4-6 inches at an angle.
Usually a good idea when transplanting to help the plant recover.

In a garden bed, they can be quite well behaved rhizome-wise. At waterside or in shallow water (up to 3 or so inches deep), they grow into very dense stands that exclude/crowd out other plants, and over time can completely outcompete the more sensitive plants in an ecosystem and decrease diversity. Their seeds also distribute quite well via water; if they are growing by the side of moving water, the seeds can go pretty far and wide, and you would never know all of the places they are cropping up downstream.

All that said, it's a lovely thing, and if you keep it in your garden and cut the spent flower stalks before any seeds ripen, you do your part to keep it from getting into sensitive areas local to you.

- Steve

Before you plant pseudacorus on your property, check with your state ag dept and make sure its legal to grow. A number of states have banned pseud because of the devastating effects it can and has had on natural waterways and native flora when it escapes from gardens or seeds travel from cultivated plantings.

I personally would not plant pseud near any other plant that I valued or in an area where I didn't want it to remain permanently. I have seen how deeply pseud roots into its spot. Unless you're a backhoe operator, pseud can be nearly impossible to dig out once it becomes well established.

Laurie