View looking east showing the two iris beds.

Purple Iris (NOID from Schreiners)

Orange Iris (NOID from Schreiners)

Lovely Steve! I just added iris back into my garden last year after being unable to resist a couple of co-ops and trade offers and I am enjoying seeing each new bloom. This is a favorite so far.

My irises are just starting to bloom. I should have a good show this year.. almost my entire row of irises have flower stalks coming up, which is nice as some of them I've never seen bloom. 100% of my irises I've gotten from Freecycle or Craigslist, and I have these purple/blue irises I call GrapeAde because that's exactly what they smell like, Grape KoolAid! I'm SOOOO excited about seeing the ones I got from Evey bloom.. they're in a different spot and none of them have flower stalks, but I can't wait! They're all in the red family! I love Steve's orange.. I don't have any oranges (that I can remember). I know I have peach, pink, yellow, white, and different purples/blues. Too bad we can't get DNA from a deep purple iris & mix it into a rose and get a real blue/purple rose! But, same token, too bad we can't get a rich rose red & shove it into an iris and have a true red iris rather than a rust or an orange.

Sure lovely photos! And I really like the boulders, Steve. I'm sure to you they are just rocks, but the look like boulders to me!

Sue, That is a lovely iris! As Toni said, iris wear blue and violet gloriously. The older I get, the more pleased I am with the way blue and white play off the grayish foliage.

Toni, I once grew Iris pallida, with cream colored foliage. The flowers smelled exactly like grape Kool Aid, too,
I'm surprised by how much abuse iris take, here. There are beds of iris planted by previous owners that have clearly been baked for half a year at a time in direct sun, in poor soil, with no water, for years on end. I decided to try to thin them out; but even jumping up and down on the shovel, it simply didn't dig into the soil at all. Pickaxe or power tools will be required.

Terri, Thanks. We had that raised bed put in last year. The angular boulder in the distance is about 15 ft high. There are enough rocks on the property that are the size of a room that I usually don't think of it as a boulder if it can be moved at all by a Bobcat!

Steve - LOL! That sounds like my "soil" come summertime w/no water! I have to use my talache (pickax) to break holes for whatever I'm planting.. which is why it's a frenzy in April/May to put so much into the ground before the soil hardens into a rock-like base from 3" from the surface on down. It breaks back up into a sand mixture after about 12-18" below that. That's why I absolutely love irises.. so many wonderful colors and they're a "throw it on the ground & forget it" type plant. Some of my best irises aren't even *in* the ground.. their rhizomes are actually sitting on TOP of the ground!!! The rest of my row I placed on top the actual dirt & covered with red rock, mainly to keep them from falling over. I may have to thin my GrapeAde area again.

I bet that "GrapeAde" smell good with the roses!

Here's a couple of pictures of my only blossoming irises as of right now. I have NOID on any of these.

I just call them the dark purple irises.

A closeup of one of them. It's true-to-color.

Here's some of my irises again. They're the only real blooms I have right now.

This is the same purple & yellow iris as above, but a more clearer picture of the throat.

And here are some of my "blue" iris. I have no idea on what any of them are called as they all came off of either Craigslist or Freecycle. Next to these blue are some whites, which will be a first-time bloomer for me (I put them in kinda sorta fall 08, they grew last year, but weren't settled enough to blossom). I also have some of the peach ones sending up flower stalks. I thought I had some yellows, too.. if not, I'll have to get some.

Can we do a iris swap here or should I go to the Iris cubit?

Very lovely.