TBGDN's blog: Irises, A Dose Of Spring Tonic!

Posted on May 17, 2015 1:01 PM

The month of May brings more vivid color and greenery to the home landscape and gardens. It is a month when April's cooler, rainy days and array of flowering spring bulbs give way to May's warmer, sun-filled "shirt-sleeve" weather. May brings with it the iris in all its forms, sizes, colors and glory! It is like an energy drink or snack bar in the form of natural beauty. Temperatures this year have been into the comfortable 70's and even a few lower 80's; and most with sunshine! As I post this blog article it is unfortunately a cool, cloudy and breezy day. Photography of irises today, or at least this morning, is marginal at best. I like sunlight on my blooms to show off their best features and colors. The picture at right was taken in cloudy, somewhat darkened conditions this morning (May 17) around 10:00 AM. Although acceptable, moderate sunlight would have improved the quality of the view. Paul Black's 'Bundle Of Love' is at the bottom of the picture while a clump of I. Pallida Dalmatica forms the background. Having just come off the Irises Celebration Week ending May 15, more than 900 photos (near 1,000) were added to the ATP Database. And innumerable forum posts and comments were made. It was a good week for everyone involved! It was also an enjoyable week for not just viewing, but learning too!

Having been a 'country bumpkin' my entire life I relate easily to ATP, its members and the gorgeous pictures posted by everyone. Especially nice were the iris photos posted between May 9 through May 15, 2015. I am grateful to all the members for sharing their wonderful work! In this blog post I'd like to share some of my own offerings which I consider to be personal favorites. I hate to load a post down with pictures, but they sometimes 'speak' louder than words. At left is shown a clump of Owyhee Desert (L. Pinkston), and at right are Cub Cadet and Stroke Of Brilliance from Paul Black at Mid-America Gardens in Oregon. Irises in some form, cultivar, variety, species or sub-species grow on every continent except Antarctica. So there are innumerable irises everywhere. Even the American Iris Society lists many thousands of registered plants in the MDB, MTB, SDB, TB, BB and LA classifications! It would be impossible for an individual to remember each cultivar, let alone each classification and the varieties within each one. It is nice to just grow some in the home landscape and learn something about them. They are especially effective as speciman plants or in mixed settings with other perennials. My hope is to encourage others, especially the younger generation, by sharing my personal experiences, and pictures with them.

In the above group of pictures from left to right are: Different World, TB, from the late Richard Ernst, 1992 (A gorgeous iris!); In the second picture is Vanity hybridized by the late Ben Hager, 1975, Dykes Medal 1982, (Exceptional!); The last two pictures more or less illustrate to "not be afraid" to let your imaginative process work for you. The featured iris is the historic Honorabile showing in both photos. In the last one there are roses and other perennials mixed. That bed has since been thinned out quite a bit. The next group of pictures below are just random favorites which illustrate how I use them in the landscape..

In the last group below I've pictured some of my own seedlings that I have saved over the years. These were all from 2010, and there have been no crosses made since. It is such a time consuming process, and involves a lot of work and garden space! I doubt if any of these would be worthy of registration, not because of their looks and quality: But because there are so many out there that are similar in appearance, size & color.

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