Brad Those garden shots are amazing. I cannot even imagine that many iris in bloom at once - definite overload possibility.

Leslie, who did that painting for you? It is beautiful!!!

Brad....those field and garden shots are amazing. I could see how a person would get dazed by the beauty, the sights and smells, total sensory overload! Heaven!! Now I reallly want to go!! It's only about a 10 hour drive from here...

Oh -- go, Marilyn -- it would be the trip of a lifetime!!

I have always wanted to go. I used to live in Washington, so it would be a great homecoming to go commune with the iris. I am sure I would be out in the fields for hours and hours. I would like to go to Schreiners, then go down and hit Mount Pleasant Farms to see the Japanese iris bloomtime.

Marilyn: Thanks. The painting wasn't painted per se, I did it using the dry brush feature on photo shop. I have a friend who used to work for kodak and had some old versions of photoshop. The versions don't work on the new versions of Microsoft windows unfortunately. But I used an old Vista machine to convert the photo.

I love it Leslie! Beautiful Cats...well done!

If you have a picture you would like converted you can send it to me, and I can send you different artistic options. Just let me know by treemail.

Love the cats Leslie!

Wow, those photos of Schreiners are amazing! I'm still waiting for Tom and Mary Ann to pass the bottle of wine.

Schreiner's also has tastings of a liquor made from irises in case that wine bottle never reaches you Rob!

Looking at all the iris in those garden pics makes me think that the scent of all those irises out in the sun would be heavenly. I wouldn't want to leave.

I thought Irises were toxic?

"toxic" is a somewhat "relative" term......borers eat the leaves and rhizomes....grasshoppers eat the leaves....bees eat the nectar and the pollen......in 'olden days", different parts of the iris were used as medicines or cosmetics. I'm sure if the bees can make honey from the nectar, man can make 'booze" from it, as well. I'm sure the petals would make wine. Since I'm not a wine drinker....that would seem a real waste of a bloom, to me . I think that deer find the foliage "un-savory" to their taste, but I don't think it would 'hurt' them.

Guess I never went beyond the idea that Iris are considered poisonous to dogs and applied it universally.

Well, Dogs aren't supposed to have chocolate either..........glad I'm not a dog ! ! Of coarse if I were, I wouldn't have this big belly from eating all those Hersey bars !!

Isn't Orris root actually dried rhizomes from I. pallida or germanica? I had a bag of powder that I used in making potpourri many years ago. It smelled nice.

Rob -- if ya want me to share a bottle of wine, you have to tell me ahead of time!!!

I had never heard of orris root. I googled it and found that it is used not only in perfumes and potpourri, as part of a spice mix and as a tincture to flavour syrup.

Here's a short quote from a wikipedia article:

In perfume

Typical iris perfumes (where orris prevails over the other components) are: "Orris Noir" by the London-based perfume house Ormonde Jayne Perfumery,[1] "Infusion d'iris" (Prada*); "Iris Silver Mist" (Serge Lutens*); "Tumulte" (Christian Lacroix*); "Aqua di Parma"* and "Iris nobile" (Aqua di Parma*); "Irisia"(Creed*); "Y" (Yves Saint Laurent*) and "Vol de nuit" (Guerlain*). "Orris Noir" contains regular orris root oil, not the oil of Iris nigricans, which is an endangered species.

In cuisine

Orris root is often included as one of the many ingredients of Ras el hanout, a blend of herbs and spices used across the Middle East and North Africa, primarily associated with Moroccan cuisine.

Orris root has been used in tinctures to flavour syrups; its taste is said to be indistinguishable from raspberry.[2]


The things we learn on this forum... who would guess!

No kidding........................

Such a well-read and intelligent group! Sort of scary, isn't it

Same Wikipedia article, I think, "Orris is also an ingredient in many brands of gin."

Yep, same article. I meant to include that but forgot...thanks Debra! Don't want to forget that interesting tidbit!!