Virginia Iris
Iris virginica
Blue and purple flowers from March into June, worked by mining bees and digger bees. It grows wild in 42 of North Carolina’s 100 counties.
- Light
- Part shade to full sun
- Soil
- Moist to wet soil
- Size
- 1.8 ft to 2.5 ft tall, 2 ft wide
- Flowers
- Blue and purple, Mar to Jun
- Leaves
- Deciduous
- Roots
- Spreading rhizomes or runners; wants 6 in of soil
- Kind
- Wildflower
At its grown size
in flowerfruit or seedfall colorbare for winter
What it feeds
- Caterpillars
- 10 kinds of caterpillars
- Bees
- 15 kinds of native bees
- On its flowers
- Mining bee (Andrena geranii), Digger bee (Anthophora ursina), Cuckoo bee (Holcopasites heliopsis), Cuckoo bee (Nomada denticulata)
Grows well with
Common Sneezeweed
Carolina Phlox
Lyreleaf Sage
Red Chokeberry
Fringed Sedge
Northern Spider-lily
Sweet Woodreed
Virginia SweetspireFacts from the Quercus record for Iris virginica.