Iris ‘Golden Waves’  (Witt 1979)  Held by Plant Guardian  Tricia Adam.

I first saw a photograph of this beautiful Iris in Currier McEwen’s book ‘The Siberian Iris’ published in 1996.  He described it as a Cal Sib cross – 24 inches tall, very late flowering. Lightly ruffled clear light yellow with darker yellow signal spot outlined with black freckles.

I discovered that it was available from the iris grower V H Humphrey and managed to buy a small plant in 1998. It increased very slowly and took several years to flower. When it did flower it was in mid June after my other Californian and Siberian irises had flowered and it was as stunning as the photograph.

In 2013  I decided to register it with the Plant Guardian scheme and at the same time took some divisions. Unfortunately, of the six divisions I potted up, only one survived the winter. It could be that the long time to flowering and the fact that small divisions don’t seem to succeed have limited its availability.