OMG! Mine are to!!! I put them in the greenhouse so they would not freeze. Guess you can bring them in ans put them in a sunny window!!??? Puzzles me as well.

I have only small greenhouse which is for small pots ,they are planted in huge pot to drag it inside .I planted them in February and they started their growing season in March just to finish in August .In August all the folliage went brown and i then cut it back .And now they sprouted again .Same happened with lillies they died back in July and then sprouted again now they are blooming .Also my Magnolia Stelata is budding .What on the earth is going one with the plants ?They should have gone dormant not waking up for new season when the ice is matter of weeks .

Artesmia, you need to check your zone number against the recommended zones for Dutch iris. They may be able to winter over out of doors. Do your neighbors have them in their beds? Do you have a fireplace wall outside where it would stay warmer?

They are not hardy enuf for zone 4 (Aquawise's zone).

Zones 5-9 are suggested but I've read of people having trouble below zone 7.

I'm in zone 9 and mine have been up since early Oct.

Dear iris gal ,thank you for your advice ,but i have never hears of zones in UK .To my knowledge they exist in USA .And there is another problem i live in here from three years and i have been told that the normal British winter used to not go bellow - 10 Celsius in the last 40 years !.But that rule obviouslly has gone out of the window last two years temperatures fell to -17 C.Also people were so shocked with so much snow that they had to be housebounded .In short the weather has gone insane and i mean insane .We had also hot Octomber wave when the temperatures went into sumer range and i suspect that is what made the bulbs sprout it hold about one week .So as you can see weather obviouslly does not care for any seasons and zones .On sidel note i saw onother kind of irises growing into peoples gardens happily (the toller kind ).Also i see people selling their bulbs and many other kinds of irises so i assume if they sell them they should survive ,because on the instruction does not say that they are not winter hardy .But i will research some more on the matter .

Good grief...I just checked and mine are up, too! A beautiful drift of Dutch iris Professor Blaauw. About 4inches (10 cm) above the ground. We've had a very mild fall - well-above average - so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Over the last few weeks I've seen all sorts of bulbs sprouting underground - I've been digging a bit while planting bargain perennials I couldn't resist. But these are the first sprouts I've seen above-ground.... I'm not so worried about the others as I'm sure they can take whatever Mother Nature dishes out(daffodils, tulips).

I'm just outside of Montreal, Quebec Canada - harsh winters.

I sure hope all of our eager beauties withstand the chill and ice ahead. Hoping someone has previous experience and good news to share :).

This is going to be a strange year.
Renee

Dutch iris up in October is normal for north Texas. Our winters are mild with occasional dips to single digits Fahrenheit. Last winter we had a couple of nights of 10 Fahrenheit (that's -12.2 Celsius) and the Dutch iris bloomed better than ever.

Last update .Irises keep growing ,but so far we did not have any frost .I just discovered yesterday that the crocuses i planted before two weeks are poking the soil !And then i noticed that few tulips are showing up too .Now that is major disaster :(Now i just have to pray that they somehow survive .I do not think so covering them is good idea at all .

My dutch iris come up in the fall every year. If I don't see them in the fall, there will be no blooms in the spring.I thought they were supposed to do this.

flowergirl70ks perhaps you have mild winter ?I can not imagine what will survive temperatures in range of -10 to -20 C for two months to three months (except if does not have very deep root system ) .Believe me - 20 C kills even the grass and all weeds let alone any shoots of flowering plants .Basicly all what is above the ground is or dormant or dead .

Some of mine are up too. About 6 inches about a week or so ago. They have been up for several wks now but really don't seem to be growing any taller. These I noticed because I moved a pathway over about a foot or so and they are coming up now in the middle of my path. I was hoping to move them next year when they finished blooming. Judy

Dutch iris are iris, not tulips, but they belong to a different group in the iris family from other irises, the bulbous iris (so called because they grow from bulbs rather than rhizomes).

Thanks jeanrichter for clearing that up for me. I had never seen them before, and saw some bulbs at a local store and thought they would be fun. I have hundreds of tall bearded iris, but had not heard of the dutch iris before. I hope this on again, off again winter hasn't harmed them. Thanks

Mine died down over the summer and then came up in the very late fall also and continued to grow all winter. Now that it is spring, the folliage on the dutch iris is bigger than ever. I guess they will just bloom at the regular time this spring.