Growing irises from seed

Growing irises from seed... sounds like a pretty simple proposition, right? The first question I hear a lot of gardeners ask is will it work? Then someone will often ask: Where do I get iris seeds? Inevitably, the next question is: How soon will they bloom? And oftentimes, the last question, asked with some temerity is: Is it worth it? I'll answer the last question first: Absolutely YES!

Growing irises from seed can be as simple as starting many perennial seeds. They prefer a vernalization period, which is really not much more than a technical way of saying that iris seeds need to go through the wet and cold period of winter, before they start to grow in the springtime. You can do this indoors by soaking and rinsing your seeds for up to two weeks, and then refrigerating for up to three months. Or you can follow a simpler approach and plant them into pots before winter sets in. Seeds placed into flats or pots or even module trays before December, then left outdoors through the winter, will experience ample soaking and chilling. Come spring, you'll have tiny little seedlings. 

Seedlings started in module trays

Why bother growing irises from seed?  I think the best reason might be the variety of species that are available. You're unlikely to find more than a few species of iris at your local nursery... usually Siberian irises, occasionally an iris versicolor (blue flag), and maybe iris ensata (Japanese iris).  The reason for this is that most nurseries are buying their plants from huge wholesale growers. Those plants are grown in huge fields and are shipped all over the country. This is the modern agricultural approach that supplies nurseries and garden centers everywhere. Those large growers have to grow in quantity, and as a result, variety suffers. All the more reason to support your specialist iris nurseries, especially if they are in a similar climate to your own. Best of all, a specialist iris nursery will have the ability to answer more complex questions about your iris needs. 

Back to seeds! With seeds, you can grow a huge variety of species of irises. Here's where a little homework can be exciting. Say you have a damp spot in your garden... a spot that's proved to be squishy after a June rainstorm, and your efforts to plant bearded irises there have failed time and time again. Instead, consider a moisture loving beardless iris like iris versicolor. Almost carefree, species iris can be real problem-solvers in the garden. Best of all, they extend the blooming period for your iris season. 

Iris versicolor, grown from seed from SIGNA; seedling of  'Versicle' OP (open pollinated)

Where can you buy iris seeds? There are few fantastic places to buy iris seeds, with the absolute best being SIGNA (Species Iris Group of North America) https://www.signa.org. Each year, in the fall, members of SIGNA send in seeds that they collect from their irises and they are shared for a very minimal cost to members of SIGNA. For the price of annual membership ($6.50 for e-membership), you can purchase packs of seeds for $1.00/pack. Keep in mind that some of these seeds are very rare, so sometimes a pack of seeds might be fewer than ten seeds in a little glassine envelope. The SIGNA website lists how to take part in the seed exchange, both as someone purchasing seeds, as well as a contributor of seeds.

Other places to find iris seeds include seed swaps which often happen within cooperating iris societies within the American Iris Society. For example, this year was the second year in a row that the Siberian Iris Society offered Siberian iris seeds for free to members of the Siberian Iris Society. The iris seeds came from hand-pollinated crosses of plants hybridized by amazing hybridizers like Bob Hollingworth, Patrick Spence, and Marty Schafer & Jan Sacks! These seeds are a little window into the hybridizing process that these iris breeders work on, year after year. Other cooperating iris societies like the Dwarf Iris Society (https://www.dwarfirissociety.org/seedsale.html) have a seed sale. Joining these cooperating iris societies can be exciting to meet others with similar interests and it can expand your potential iris collections!

Another possibility for seed starting is to save seeds from your own irises. Like saving seeds from your annuals and perennials, you can save seed year to year from your own plants. Wait until the end of summer, when the pods are nice and brown, dry and just beginning to open. Cut the pods and empty them into a shallow dish to dry further. Once they have completely dried, you can store them in a paper envelope until you are ready to plant.  

 

Iris versicolor seed pod and loose seeds

How soon will your iris seeds bloom? This is probably the most frustrating part of growing anything from seed. Most iris seedlings will need one to two years as a seedling before their first bloom. However, when it blooms for the first time you will be the first person to ever see that specific iris bloom! It might be astounding or it might be kinda dull. Don't judge a seedling flower based on the first year of growth. Give it another year, see how the bloom improves, see if the foliage is attractive, and give it a chance to impress you. I started growing a few different Siberian irises from seeds three years ago, and 2025 was the first year to see some of them bloom. For the first time in our garden we had rich deep yellow Siberian iris blooms (thanks to Marty Schafer and Jan Sacks for sharing some of their seeds!). 

Yellow Siberian iris seedling from seeds shared by Marty Schafer and Jan Sacks 

Ask a gardener how long until a flower starts to bloom and there's the inevitable eye-roll. If you want fast blooms, buy a mature plant or rhizome, and within a year or so, you should have your first blooms. This is also the path to take if you are collecting irises from specific hybridizers. While these new seedlings of yours will not have a name, they will have provenance in the form of knowing who shared the seed, where the seed came from, what potential parent irises the seed came from, whether it was open-pollinated or hand-pollinated. In some cases, you might be growing seeds that are part of lineage that was shared by other seed sharing collectors from other countries. We are growing an iris ensata whose provenance takes it back to Russia, having originally been shared by Nina Alexeeva, where they traveled to Jill Copeland in Michigan where they were grown as part of a study, and eventually ended up in Maine, being shared to the SIGNA seed exchange by Sharon Whitney. These seeds have covered a lot of miles!

 

Iris ensata seedling,  from Russia thanks to seeds from SIGNA