How come your peonies are always ahead of mine, while my irises are always ahead of yours !

Because maybe that's a tree peony, which bloom earlier than herbacious peonies?

crowrita1 said: How come your peonies are always ahead of mine, while my irises are always ahead of yours !

Ah, the mysteries of Nature!

That peony is a tree peony though my the other one that has bloomed before the TP is just a regular very early peony.



None of my other ones are open yet.

Tom, I'm looking forward to pictures of your TBs!

A few more opened.

Bad Boy, one really cute one that I was afraid I'd lost, but found him again snuggled up next to a TB. This was a gift from Bonnie.


Free As The Wind, an AB cross, another Bonnie gift.


Suspect is another Bonny gift.


TB number 4, Fancy Dress blooming crowded down on a short stalk, but there are many more on the way that are normal stalks, so I'll get a better picture later I'm sure. This is one amazing grower and performing iris. I alway have to thin this one annually.

Beautiful photos, Tom, of some lovely iris! More! More!

I suppose I could use the hair dryer to warm them up and open faster.

Tom ~ It's warm here and still, the irises are taking their sweet time to open. (In all due time...)

I still have some more of the little ones to bloom yet.

Well a couple more have opened. I guess the hair drier worked.

Ridge Crest, growing with a short stem.



Temporal Anomaly, love the speckles.


Dark Universe, love this one. I see a lot of you have it.

You were right. It was worth the 5 year wait. It's hard to believe it's even real.

tveguy3 said:


Dark Universe, love this one. I see a lot of you have it.

I went out before the sun was completely up in my Jammies to check for blooms and took a couple pictures. I liked the outcome of the pics better then in full sun. The colors seem to be truer.

Restless Spirit sure is going to put on a show this year, it's a large clump and has a lot of stalks.


Man's Best Friend, sure grows fast, I thinned it to just a couple rhizomes last year, and it's growing fast again.


Temporal Anomaly, the bloom was more relaxed and had better form this morning, so I took another picture.



Color Capers is going to make a nice clump shot later, a lot of stalks and buds with some great show quality stalks.

I missed Petit Tigre this morning, but Poppi and I went on a walk around and found it blooming. It's much darker colored this year, at least the first one blooming is. I know a lot of people don't like the brown iris, but I sure like them.


I also see that my tree peony is in full bloom now, it's been slow to grow, and this is the first year it's had more then a couple blooms.

Beautiful peony! My peonies have all taken at least 3 years before they started having numerous blooms. The wait is worth it for the show they put on from then on!

A couple more pictures.
Another look at Dark Universe.

I really love this one.


Fancy Dress on a normal stalk, much nicer.


Color Capers is making a nice clump already.


First time seeing Mauve Mistress, in my garden thanks to Debra.

I see a couple new ones open this morning while looking around with the flashlight. It's supposed to be in the 80's today, that should move things along.

How come your Color Capers has opened before mine? I'm in 6a? My peonies are only little buds...

It's near the house in a kind of microclimate, things are alway first to bloom there. Most of my peonies are just in bud yet, but the tree peony is very early, and the red one is always the first to bloom, very early.

Yes, I know I'm obsessing over Dark Universe, but just one more picture, a stem shot, I promise this is the last pic of it until next year.



Oil Painting is one of my favorite Ghio irises. It sure grows well and always blooms. I probably should have waited for it to relax a bit more, so I'll have to take another picture later.


You're So Veined puts on a nice show too.



Noble Gesture has opened a couple blooms this morning. There are a lot of stalks in the clump this year, and should look nice later.