Plant Database
Lemon Drops African Iris
Dietes ‘Lemon Drops’
Dietes 'Lemon Drops' is a charming, evergreen perennial prized for its long season of delicate, creamy-yellow flowers with distinctive brownish-purple blotches. This clump-forming iris relative forms a tidy, upright fountain of stiff, sword-shaped, dark green, grass-like leaves that provide year-round textural interest. From spring through autumn, it produces slender, branched flower stalks bearing beautiful, iris-like, 2-inch wide blooms with creamy-white to pale yellow outer petals and prominent bright yellow inner markings (signaling "lemon drops"), each adorned with dark brown to purple blotches near the center. Flowers appear in succession, typically in two-week flushes (hence the common name "Fortnight Lily"), with each bloom lasting only one day. Exceptionally drought-tolerant once established, adaptable to a range of well-drained soils, and deer resistant, it is an outstanding choice for borders, mass plantings, containers, coastal gardens, and water-wise landscapes.