Iris germanica Danseuse d’Asie - Tall Bearded Iris

The Iris ‘Danseuse d’Asie’ is a fairly short garden iris with an unusual colour in pastel shades of greyish white, chartreuse yellow and olive. Its large flowers have undulating petals and very wide, round sepals, finely crinkled at the edge. This mid-season variety flowers in May-June.

'Danseuse d’Asie' is a perennial with fleshy rootstocks classified in the group of tall bearded irises. These plants of the Iridaceae family descend from Iris × germanica, an old European hybrid from Iris pallida and Iris variegata. They develop from superficial rootstocks, resist cold well in drained soil and tolerate summer drought once established. Their sword-shaped leaves, a slightly glaucous green, persist more or less in winter depending on the climate.

This variety 'Danseuse d’Asie' produces flower stems 75 cm tall. After 3 or 4 years of cultivation, the clump occupies 40 to 50 cm on the ground. The rootstocks multiply slowly at the periphery of the stump, while those in the centre stop flowering. Its stems are well ramified, with flowers well distributed on the stem. They open in May-June, at the heart of the garden iris season. Each presents three upright white petals slightly tinged with grey and broadly washed with soft chartreuse yellow, and three trailing very wide, almost round sepals, of a greyish white, traversed by fine yellow-green veins, edged with olive yellow. The small undulations of the edge give movement to the flower. The beards are orange-yellow in the throat, yellow in the middle and white at their end.

Obtained in France by Richard Cayeux and registered in 2023, this iris bears the seedling number 14 36 E. It comes from a cross between a seedling from ‘Ciel Gris sur Poilly’ and ‘Infusion Tilleul’, then ‘Haunted Heart’. It belongs to the same sibling group as the iris ‘Éclosion’.

Plant this iris 'Danseuse d’Asie' in groups of three rootstocks, spaced 35 to 40 cm apart, to obtain a well-flowered clump within 2-3 years. In a flower bed, associate it with more contrasting or more uniform irises, in order to preserve the delicacy of its tones. The Iris ‘Domino Noir’, white and almost black violet, gives depth to its chartreuse nuances. The Iris ‘Ciel Gris sur Poilly’ takes up its shades of grey and soft bronze. You can add the Euphorbia characias ‘Tasmanian Tiger’ for its cream and pale green tones and the Sesleria argentea whose small light clump will allow the rootstocks to bake in the sun.

The vegetable garden can accommodate a few clumps of iris, along with other cut flowers, particularly gladioli.