RARE BLOOM: Royston Rubie iris blooms in Posen

by Peter Jakey–Managing Editor

It took more than a decade of work and loving care, but Posen resident Kathryn Southerland could not be more-proud of the rare Royston Rubie iris that opened on her property for the first time Monday. The faithful moment was more than a decade in the making. It is the only truly red iris variety on planet Earth.

“THERE ARE some that have different hues of red and that are more purple, but this is an actual red variety,” Southerland. 

Southerland had been doing quite a bit of flowering and gardening in 2015, when she heard about organic dairy farmer Adam Cordes of Royston.

Cordes won several awards, including National Iris, and eventually became president of the National Iris Society. The flower won numerous awards including the 2025 Dykes Medal from the National Iris Society. All out of little Royston, a stagecoach stop along 451 Highway in Montmorency County.

Southerland became good friends with Cordes’ cousin. It took seven years before she had a rhizome, a rootlike, often thickened, and usually horizontal underground plant stem that produces shoots above and roots below.

 “WHEN I moved to Posen in 2022, I planted it,” she said. “I got three of them and only one survived over the last two years. I got this one finally to bloom after the three, so it’s taken a full decade for me to get this bloom to come about.

“I think it’s pretty cool because it’s the only red iris variety, they’re super rare, and it was hybridized only 15 minutes away from us,” said Southerland, who believes it has four more blooms left.

“I’m going to water it so that it doesn’t fade as fast because it fades in the heat if it doesn’t get water,” she said. “And I’d say the bloom will last probably for at least a week.”

SOUTHERLAND INVITES anyone who is interested to drive by the white house at Center and Vincent. It is on the west side of the house, or along Center Avenue.