It's fascinating to watch them unfold right in front of you. Sometimes it happens so quickly!

Things are opening but pics will be delayed. My little Kodak camera that I loved has finally bitten the dust. Those pics I posted of Montmartre etc were the last it was able to take. I knew it was on its last legs by the end of last season, so I found a used Canon Powershot on ebay. I wrongly assumed I could use the same USB cable that I used for my Kodak, but no! So I'm waiting for that to arrive to share my pictures.

Honeycomb has bloomed - after 5 years! My first time seeing it. The flower is large and ruffly, and a magnificent gold color - a yellow orange, or an orange yellow. It's a keeper.

Another flower that I'm seeing for the first time - Peggy Anne. I thought I had lost it all. It's a wild broken color. The flower is not very big, but it could be an interesting addition to bouquets if I can ever find a place to sell them again.

The farmers market I them sold at last year in my village isn't happening this year. The manager got fed up and decided after umpteen years, it was time to go. No one stepped forward to do the job (there is no pay) so I lost my place to sell.

I loved being able to make a little money with iris to offset the cost involved to sate my plant lust. And, I love making bouquets of iris. It changed how I viewed certain iris - one that is not too special in the garden can be a great addition to a bouquet - even that yellow iris that was hated on in another thread can be useful as a background in a bouquet to set off dramatic flowers.

Class Ring and Designer's Art have opened, and my favorite iris, Volcanic Glow is coming. A few I thought weren't going to bloom, have made bloom stalks.

But something weird happened last night. When I came out in the early morning to water the veg, I saw whole iris plants completely uprooted and lying on the ground. One appeared to be Dusky Challenger, it's bloom stalk broken off. So bummed. I think that was the only blooming fan of it. I'm really not sure - it may take a few seasons to know what I have as things seem to have gotten somewhat mixed around during the borer remediation process, though I tried to hard to keep track of who was who - clearly mistakes were made, as they say. I found another fan with a bloom stalk intact. I just stuck back in the dirt somewhere because I couldn't figure out where it had come from. Hopefully it will bloom and I'll know what it is. Nothing was actually eaten as far as I could tell, though maybe something tried and found it was yucky. The damage looked too intentional to be something just running through, but too chaotic to be human activity.

At this point I suspect a frustrated woodchuck who checked out the pepper seedlings which he hates, chewed on some echinacea and was infuriated by the menu. I put in Brussels sprouts today, in pots surrounded by a wire enclosure. War is probably on over that. Hope I win, cuz I love Brussels sprouts.

Pictures!

First time blooms for me: Cold Fusion and Tuscan Summer, with a big clump of one of my favs Elizabethan Age


Absolute Treasure - planted last summer and it increased and sent up several stalks



Also planted last summer, My Beloved


Honeycomb - worth all those years waiting for it to bloom. What color!



Stan Coates, that hasn't bloomed in years


Cotillion Gown, first time I'm seeing this


Here it is with old favorite, Class Ring



Peggy Anne - first time bloomer for me. It was a big surprise. Thought I'd lost all of it


Tainted Love - took a couple of years to bloom but has been thriving ever since


Treasured - was almost dead - a few pathetic tiny fans before the borers struck. It is going gangbusters now that it has more sun. A very tall iris


Still my favorite light blue, Princesse Caroline de Monaco - growing like crazy


Wintry Sky -the borers really did a number on what was a big clump, but the piece that survived is happy


A Little Less Conversation - this is one of Robin Shadlow's that I received as a bonus


Struggling with the focus on my new camera, so lots of my first batch of pix were unusable. More iris opening every day, so more pics to come.

Nice pictures, Lyn. I so enjoy seeing everyone's blooms.

More pictures

Here's A Little Less Conversation fully open. The colors show up better on the day after





Sun Shine In with lupines in the background. They are planted where the iris refused to grow. They seem happy.


So what should I find open this morning but a lovely bloom of Haunted Heart -- problem is the garden label says Decadence. I thought I'd lost Haunted Heart so I got a new one - which is planted elsewhere. Now I don't know if I even still have Decadence. A lot of that happened in the battle of the borers.


Merchant Marine - first time bloom for me, Could not resist trying to capture the drama of the dark morning before a storm.



Treasured and Foreigner


and my favorite iris, Volcanic Glow

Especially love your photos of "A Little Less Conversation" and "Merchant Marine." I think there are some here, like me, old enough to remember seeing Elvis sing "A Little Less Conversation."

Thank you, Daisy. Robin may be old enough too. Many iris are named after songs, I notice, but that title really is a tough one to fit on the garden marker.

DaisyDo said: Especially love your photos of "A Little Less Conversation" and "Merchant Marine." I think there are some here, like me, old enough to remember seeing Elvis sing "A Little Less Conversation."

This post is possibly undiplomatic, but the situation is unusual enough to deserve comment. Last year, before I knew the farmer's market was going to be cancelled this year, I ordered iris that were labeled as late bloomers for my bouquets, and tried to expand the range of colors. One of my choices (based on our database) was Magnanimous, but it was hard to find. I located it at a vendor I had not used before, Stout Gardens. I ordered three iris from him, and received a fourth, Above the Fray, his own intro, as a bonus.

It bloomed very short but with a normal sized flower - I've had that happen before with other iris, so that is in itself not weird. It is a pretty iris. I like it.


But here's the thing. Every iris I got from him was in some way not normal. On another thread I mentioned an iris that completely rotted, for no apparent reason, though it seemed to be growing normally - that was Shadows of Night.

Next we come to Milan. It is planted in my best bed. All the others planted there are thriving, and most were planted last year and have bloomed. Milan has stayed tiny, and sent up a weird little empty stalk


And now to Magnanimous, the motivating force behind this purchase. The fans grew to a normal size and sent up a freakish bloom stalk like nothing I have ever seen. Two stalks are coming out of the same place and the bud is well... take a look


Does this guy live near a nuclear waste dump or some such thing? Anyone else had this experience?

I have had three irises this year develop the distorted stalks, and they were ones that I've had for some years, that have always done well up to now. And these were not from Stout. In fact, I have never ordered from Stout. I've noticed several members comment on short or distorted stalks this season. In my own case, I suspect borer, and will be digging up the affected plants soon after the bloom season to investigate matters.

After my experience, i will dig anything suspicious.

DaisyDo said: I have had three irises this year develop the distorted stalks, and they were ones that I've had for some years, that have always done well up to now. And these were not from Stout. In fact, I have never ordered from Stout. I've noticed several members comment on short or distorted stalks this season. In my own case, I suspect borer, and will be digging up the affected plants soon after the bloom season to investigate matters.

"What I learned was, I was born to be flower gardener. I'd grow all these vegetables --way too many for me to eat -- and I realized that I liked growing the plants more than I cared about the produce."
This really struck a chord with me. I don't really have room or the desire to grow all my own food. So why grow any? Maybe from years of growing tomato's and waiting all summer to taste them than having to give the excess away turned me off on this. But i do enjoy walking the garden and seeing and smelling the flowers. Gardening is a lot of work no matter what you grow but it's really a labor of love. This year has been a fantastic one so far for me, Rhodies finally blooming after years of disappointment, Irises really taking off, Lillies looking great as they do every year. One request, please don't show pics of Lupines, i'll try them again and be disappointed when they don't come back.

Chiming in here on the thread drift...

The first thing I ever grew was morning glory seeds, when I was maybe 11-12 years old, and we had just moved to an apartment where we had a shared yard. The flowers were glorious, removing the dead vines from the fence was not.

That was it for gardening until I was an adult in my own house, some 15-16 years later. The first thing I grew then, started at the wrong time of year (warm season veggies planted maybe in mid July), was a small veggie garden. I did that for a bit, with annuals and roses, and then branched out into herbs and later perennials.

Now, many years later, I still have a kitchen garden (to the extent the critters/drought allow), I have lots of perennials, I have some roses.

I love the ornamental garden, even though it is a lot of work. It is a feast for the eyes.

I love my small kitchen garden, even though we could (at least up until now) get our food elsewhere, for a price. I love having fresher food, grown organically. I love having a much wider choice of cultivars than available otherwise. I love the fresh tomatoes (we use the excess to make gazpacho; maybe a few get given away).

I am trying to not give up either the ornamentals nor the kitchen garden, and in these economically (and supply-chain) uncertain days, I think it unwise not to have some kind of a kitchen garden, if at all possible.

YMMV.

LynNY said:
And now to Magnanimous, the motivating force behind this purchase. The fans grew to a normal size and sent up a freakish bloom stalk like nothing I have ever seen. Two stalks are coming out of the same place and the bud is well... take a look

I've had occasional iris like this. I never found borers associated with it. I don't know the cause.

I have never seen that, but I know from experience that irises can do some pretty weird things from time to time, especially in their first year in my garden. I would give them some good iris TLC and see how they do next year.

@IrisLilli -Magical did bloom, just not where I was expecting. A fan ran off for a musical evening with La Scala.

IrisLilli said: Oh! Hope Magical blooms for you. It really is... well, you know...

Magical at La Scala? Very classy!
Here all I have is Man's Best Friend hanging out in Granny's Bonnet!

LynNY said:
And now to Magnanimous, the motivating force behind this purchase. The fans grew to a normal size and sent up a freakish bloom stalk like nothing I have ever seen. Two stalks are coming out of the same place and the bud is well... take a look


Does this guy live near a nuclear waste dump or some such thing? Anyone else had this experience?

This looks like an example of "pineappling". I found it mentioned on Schreiners website which says:
"Unusual weather patterns, such as sudden freezes following periods of mild temperatures can result in bent stems or wavy leaves (known as "pineappling")"
https://schreinersirisgardens....

IrisLilli said: Magical at La Scala? Very classy!
Here all I have is Man's Best Friend hanging out in Granny's Bonnet!

Forgot to include photo documentation:

@IrisLilli
My documentation attached as well

Lyn, Magical is so pretty! I can't wait for mine to form a clump