Irises were never really the star of my garden’s show. That is until this year. I’d had a couple of varieties for most of my gardening life here at this house. The basic purple ones and white ones. The white ones were kinda special because they were old fashioned and smell heavenly plus they were really tall, taller than normal. (shown below with Zoey)
While beautiful, they’re blooming time was so short that I didn’t give them much space. The past couple of years, my friends have shared a few of their irises with me and all I can say is wow. I think the yellow ones, which were new for me, stole the show.
My friend Glenn gave them to me last year and if you don’t know, the way you divide irises is you dig them up after blooming and then hopefully they’ll root real good to flower the next year. Glenn also gave me the white ones that are the shorter ones (not the ones with Zoey). He wasn’t sure their colors when he dug them up, but it looks like I got more white than yellow. That’s okay, I love them all. Oh and the yellow and purple was from Glenn as well.
Together, they put on such a show this year that I’ve nearly dedicated an entire bed to them and planted many more this year for even a hopefully more spectacular display next year. Now later, when all I’ve got to look at are those blue-green colored swords I may be sorry. But I’ve tried to plant summer perennials in front of them to help conceal the bareness.
Unfortunately, the show is now over for this year. Us iris fanatics have already dug up and traded our rhizomes. In fact, I’ve already planted the ones I was given. I’m so proud of myself. Usually, I’m terrible at procrastinating planting things mainly because my gardens are so full that it’s hard to find a spot without making a new garden. And I can’t be making any more work for myself. I have enough to keep a small gardening team busy already!
But has that stopped me from getting more plants??? No. No it has not. It’s an obsession.
Oops I did it again
Oh well, I guess I could have worse addictions, right?
The mauve one is from my friend Lynda, the Iris Queen. We just call this one Light Mauve. It’s actually prettier in person. Mauve is a tricky color to capture.
I was going to add more flowers from a little earlier in the spring, but I think I’ll end this for now and share some of my favorites from a month ago next time.
Hoping you’ve enjoyed the irises this time. I’ll have more gardens later.
Happy Memorial Day weekend! – Jaime
← Penny Lane Coffee House art exhibit / Purple Wall Gardening Painting ⟶
A few paintings from Delights of Spring
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Your irises are amazing, Jaime! I’m jealous. Irises have never done well for me. I had some in Cleveland and every year they shrunk instead of spread. And when I moved to Wisconsin there was one here that has totally disappeared. I did get some tubers from a student last year and the plants came back this year. We’ll see if I get any flowers. My mom grows such lovely ones, but I’m iris challenged.
I totally feel you with the getting more plants thing. I can’t help myself, either.
I hate that you’re having such trouble with your irises Anne! I do know that I don’t plant mine very deep at all. They rather like their tubers to almost sun themselves and I’ve noticed if I’ve planted mine too deeply or they’ve gotten shaded by other plants they don’t flower. I think they kinda like it dry, too. Then sometimes, they’re just being finicky and decide not to flower for no good reason. I hope you do get some flowers from the plants from your students, let me know if you do!
You have irises in so many colors! It’s definitely a beautiful flower.
Well, I move too often, hard to get a good flower garden going when you don’t know where you are going to be the next spring. In this current place, some purple ones came up, bloomed over very swiftly, but I loved them, too.
garden can make one extremely happy, especially such flowers as yours.
Oh Inese. I can’t imagine not having a garden each year. It truly is my sanctuary. However, there are ways to take your gardens with you if you’re stubborn enough like I would be. I’d plant everything in large pots and take my garden with me! But I know what a hassle that would probably be but I think I’d still do it if it were me. I’m glad you did get to enjoy the purple ones this year.
The irises look amazing! I actually don’t have any in my garden which is very surprising to me since they have been popping up everywhere it seems. Perhaps it’s a sign that I need to plan some iris patches for next year. It would seem all us gardeners are guilty of getting more flowers than we need 🙂
Well I certainly suggest you get yourself a patch of irises! Consider this your sign! They’re just regal queens in the garden, I think. Easy to take care of, too. If we lived close to each other I’d share mine with you 🙂