Tennessee State Flower Iris

State Flowers 2 Minutes

The tall, beautiful iris flower, named after the Greek goddess who rode rainbows, comes in many magical colors. Despite its divine origins, this beautiful flower is rugged, reliable, and easy to grow. Learn to plant and care for irises for long-term success in your gardens.

About Irises

More than 250 species make up the genus Iris. The most familiar irises are the tall bearded irises (I. germanica), which reach 2 to 3 feet tall. Their distinctive six-petaled flowers have three outer hanging petals (called falls) and three inner upright petals (called standards).

Irises may be a bearded or crested (aka beardless) type. Bearded irises are so-called because they have soft hairs along the center of their falls. The hairs on crested types, like the Siberian iris, form a comb or ridge instead.

Most irises flower from late spring to early summer. Some—mostly bearded hybrids—are remontant, meaning they may flower again later in the summer. The blooming period of Siberian irises tends to follow that of the bearded types.

Irises attract butterflies and hummingbirds and make lovely cut flowers. For iris companions in the garden, look to roses, peonies, and lilies.

When to Plant Irises

  • Plant most irises in late summer to early fall, when nighttime temperatures remain between 40° and 50°F (4° and 10°C) or above. This gives them plenty of time to get established before the coming winter.
  • Tall bearded iris varieties are best planted closer to fall because they tend to go dormant in early to mid-summer.
  • If you receive bare rhizomes or irises in a container at some point earlier in the year, plant them as soon as possible. It’s better to get them in the ground rather than wait until the “ideal” time.

How to Plant Irises

  • Plant bare-root rhizomes (the thick stems) horizontally, with the top exposed and only the roots underground. In areas with particularly hot summers, set the rhizome just below the soil surface.
  • Dig a hole 10 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep. Make a ridge of soil down the middle and place the rhizome on the ridge, spreading the roots down both sides. Fill in the hole and firm it gently, leaving part of the rhizome and the foliage uncovered.
  • Plant singly or in groups of three, 1 to 2 feet apart, depending on the fully grown plant’s size.
  • Soak Siberian iris rhizomes in water overnight before planting, then set them 1 inch deep (2 inches, if the soil is sandy), 2 feet apart. Over a period of years, they will form clumps; divide when blooms get smaller and vigor declines.
  • Do not mulch around the rhizome, as this may encourage rot.
  • Water thoroughly.
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Published by pat frederick

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55 thoughts on “Tennessee State Flower Iris”

  1. Good Morning All!

    we’ve been getting gentle (mostly) rain off and on for the last few days and the pond came up some, but nearly enough.

    We have been privy tom A LOT of young bucks locking “horns”–hard to call them horns in some of their cases lol–but boys will be boys.

    I bought a large pumpkin at the little market in town and put it out by the stump–nothing has taken notice of it yet. I want to get a picture of it when it gets lighter.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Morning GA!

        gorgeous!

        when the guy put in our pond, he planted irises–white, purple and yellow–here and there along the edges and it took them a year to really establish themselves–now they are finally spreading and a bonus? the deer don’t eat them!

        Liked by 2 people

    2. Good morning, finally…..I woke up to no power and discovered no-one around me had power either – IDK if it was the entire town but certainly this neighborhood. When I looked at my cell, I realized it was down to 3 bars and I don’t have a car charger for this phone yet….note to self: buy one!!! The power just came on 10 minutes ago. thankfully….hoping it stays on!!

      Liked by 1 person

  4. OldDog

    September 26, 2025 12:56 am

    FTA… On Wednesday, the good government group Americans for Public Trust (APT) released a bombshell report unearthing the extensive financial activity of British billionaire Christopher Hohn in U.S. political causes. Through the use of his nonprofit, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), Hohn has “funneled over $553 million into U.S. organizations from 2014 through 2023 to bankroll advocacy campaigns and push a radical green energy agenda,” according to the analysis.

    https://thefederalist.com/2025/09/25/meet-the-british-billionaire-bankrolling-leftist-causes-across-america/

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Liked by 1 person

  8. Shipwreckedcrew
    @shipwreckedcrew
    Point about shut-down fight:

    One obstacle to passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” back in June were the proposed “cuts” to Medicaid. The “cuts” were to return Medicaid eligibility to what it was pre-COVID by requiring single adults to seek employment as a condition to coverage.

    GOP House and Senate members objected on the basis that such cuts — along with a change to reimbursement that would not allow state taxes to be part of reimbursement payments for provider costs — would do serious harm to the thin finances of rural hospitals, and would likely lead to shutdown of many of them thereby reducing the level of available health services in rural communities.

    To secure the votes needed from red state Senators for whom this was a big issue, a $50 billion rural health care fund was created to offset the expected losses, with somewhat vague provisions for eligibility that were to be worked out later by HHS.

    The Democrats called this a giveaway to secure GOP votes for the One Big Beautiful Bill.

    Yeah — you can do that when you have a majority.

    One of the conditions that Schumer has trotted out for Democrat support of a CR to prevent a Govt shutdown next week is elimination of this $50 billion fund.

    So the Democrats want to cut health care spending for the poor.

    THAT needs to be a GOP talking point.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Will Chamberlain
    @willchamberlain
    We just went through four years of BS indictment after BS indictment. A number of my friends were indicted on obviously frivilous charges as the MSNBC legal hyenas cheered them on.

    Now Comey is indicted on the most straightforward crime imaginable – lying under oath to Congress – and they are calling it the greatest abuse in the history of the Department of Justice. But they are doing so without even analyzing the crime, which has the simplest elements imaginable: did Comey lie under oath about whether or not he leaked sensitive information to the press?

    He said he didn’t. Kash declassified intelligence that says he very much did. Bingo, bango, boom. Comey will have a chance to contest the classified intelligence – but there is OBVIOUSLY a prima facie case here, and there is nothing novel about the charge except for the fact that the defendant is a former FBI director.

    And sure, in the first Trump administration, this charge probably wouldn’t have gotten indicted. Trump was being nice in the first term. He had Hillary dead to rights on mishandling classified information, and decided that his DOJ should let it go. But the Biden DOJ, Tish James, Alvin Bragg, Fani Willis and the MSNBC legal harpies threw away prudence, and indicted Trump 4 times in four different jurisdictions in a little over four months, after he was already a declared Presidential candidate.

    We aren’t idiots. You’ve discarded prudence. And so now we are going to indict the prosecutable crimes against those who participated in the lawfare against President Trump. And we may not convict them all – juries are juries – but bet that we will convict some.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Liked by 1 person

  14. Charlotte99

    September 26, 2025 7:00 am

    Before Obama’s presidency. The following didnt exist.

    There was no ISIS.
    There was no caliphate.
    There was no Black Lives Matter.
    There was no Antifa.
    There was no war on police.
    All of that chaos started under his watch.
    He didn’t stop it, he started it.
    Obama is the real Divider-in-Chief, and America is still paying the price.
    Barack Obama was the biggest mistake America has ever made, because his goal was never to build America up, his goal was to destroy it.
    And the saddest part, So many people couldn’t see how corrupt he truly was, because they were too busy worshipping him simply because of his skin color.

    https://nitter.poast.org/w_terrence/status/1971008226775941216#m

    Liked by 1 person

  15. for the love of Mike!

    Williams, sporting culturally appropriated blonde hair, discusses how she walked by a vase of cotton flowers in an unnamed NY hotel hallway and “it didn’t feel great”. She felt the need to touch the cotton–holding it in her gloved hand just for effect. Dear, I’ve seen you out on the court. you are not a delicate flower. GET OVER IT!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-15134645/Serena-Williams-left-uncomfortable-NYC-hotels-cotton-plant-decoration-Doesnt-feel-great.html

    Liked by 1 person

  17. GGGGGggggrrrrrrrrrrr

    September 26, 2025 8:55 am

    I don’t know if this has been shared previously…

    Elon Musk’s DOGE Uncovered the Biggest Health Care Heist in American History
    “If you didn’t hear about the bust of 324 people; the U.S.-based cartel shell medical supply companies; the pill mills pushing opioids; the doctors on the take; or how law enforcement captured many of the bad guys at the U.S. border and airports as they rushed to escape, that’s understandable. The feds revealed this potential $14.6 billion “depth charge” planted inside the Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance programs in June, while most people were away on summer vacation.

    … the bad guys have tried, by hook or by crook, and even with the aid of AI, to set into motion plans to steal nearly $15 billion. They got away with just shy of $3 billion before they were caught, and their other frauds were frozen in their tracks. 
    If this bust looks to you like it had Elon Musk’s old Department of Government Efficiency fingerprints on it, you’d be right. Using AI and law enforcement tactics, the DOGE team worked with HHS, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, and an all-hands-on-deck array of federal agents from the DEA, FBI, and health care agencies to track down all fraud leads, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). As a result, the feds are setting up a healthcare data fusion center to detect where fraud spikes are occurring in near real time.”

    Link: https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2025/09/24/the-biggest-health-care-heist-that-you-probably-never-heard-of-n4944085

    Liked by 1 person

  20. “Make ‘Protesters’ Paid By Foreign Groups Register Like Foreign Agents — Foreign nationals and foreign governments don’t have the right to participate in our political process.”

    By: Brent D. Sadler, Hans von Spakovsky, and Mike Gonzalez, September 26, 2025

    /protest-in-london-with signs about Palestine

    EXCERPT: “When most people hear the word “mercenary,” they conjure up images of shady men protecting corrupt regimes. Today, however, another mercenary prowls our streets: the paid protester.

    A crucial element of the democratic process is free speech, debate, and yes, civil protests about public policy. But we should be concerned about interference by mercenaries funded by hostile foreign governments and nationals to manipulate public opinion, create costly public disturbances, and unduly influence government officials and institutions.

    These American mercenaries are employed to shout slogans and disrupt political events, government operations, academia, and institutions. For instance, Code Pink, financed by backers in China, has disrupted many public events over the years, including a March 2025 Congressional hearing.

    No one questions the right of Americans to speak freely, to petition the government for redress of grievances, and to protest peacefully. And no one questions the right for citizens to be paid to speak, lobby, or protest by other citizens or advocacy organizations that represent every viewpoint imaginable.

    But foreign nationals and foreign governments have no such right to participate, surreptitiously or overtly, in our democratic process. When enabled by nefarious foreign forces, these mercenaries pose a danger to American civil society and our republic. This is a national security issue that imperils the functioning of our entire political and electoral system.

    There are credible reports of the terrorist group Hamas funding protests that have caused immeasurable damage to students, college campuses, and the educational environment. In June, Congress sought an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into Chinese-financed protests — think the ANSWER Coalition, financed by a billionaire who lives in Shanghai, participating in recent anti-ICE riots in Los Angles.

    Funding by foreign adversaries is intended to cause dissension in our civil and political society, not to inform rational discussion or debate by American citizens……”

    https://thefederalist.com/2025/09/26/make-protesters-paid-by-foreign-groups-register-like-foreign-agents/

    Liked by 1 person

  23. “Jill’s pet peeve. Those little, almost impossible to see symbols on the car’s dashboard – Most of these symbols below can be explained, in English, with a short word… and for those of us old enough, we can remember a time… when that was how it was done.”

    Liked by 1 person

  28. Just The News: “The Supreme Court on Friday extended President Donald Trump’s freeze on roughly $4 billion in foreign aid payments. The 6-3 ruling is being considered a significant victory for the White House in its months-long effort to claw back spending approved last year on Capitol Hill because it could effectively give Trump a roadmap toward canceling more congressionally-approved money, according to CNN. 

    The money includes funding for global health and HIV programs that Trump deemed wasteful.

    The ruling comes after the high court stayed the order earlier this month – following a lower court determining that Trump lacked the authority to withhold funding that Congress allocated. The court’s three liberal justices dissented. Trump previously moved to block the funding through a so-called “pocket rescission” after Congress approved roughly $11 billion in aid.”

    Liked by 1 person

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