blooming in the garden in s.d. county happy 2023 season!


'concertina' unusually tall this season, for me….about 24". they're usually much shorter, around 12-16".


one with spoons.
one with horns.

'navy blues'. very short with huge flowers.



'carpe diem'
with slight horns, pic from an earlier post.

guess my season has officially started. hooray 2023👏🏻👏🏻

Daphne ~ That is early! And they are beautiful.

I probably won't see any here until April.

Wow, Daphne, that IS early!

'Concertina' is interesting... too bad it's not a TB.

I don't recall ever seeing spoons on my concertina. You must be doing something right…
Have you been getting any of the rain that we've had up north of you?

We've been getting a lot of rain, too. It not as much as norcal , I don't think.

Right now we're dry, for at least another week or more. It's nice to see the sun again.

It's nice to see some bloom photos

It's raining here now. It was supposed to snow all day. I have no idea what I will see in the morning, as the previous snow hadn't all melted yet.
(No irises in bloom here!)

Daphne, I was going to suggest that perhaps your Concertina's unusual height was due to the heavy rainfall - but your 'Navy Blues' being so short kind of negates that theory. Anyway, how fun for you to have flowers already. My irises' leaves are just a few inches tall.

thank you for the acorn, serjio. it was kind of you to acknowledge my irises for 2023.

i know this is redundant, and i promise not to post anymore pics of 'carpe diem' this season ( unless there's something unusual . : )





second bloom had unusually long spoons.

i'll place 1st & 2nd blooms together in the post.
first, maybe had horns?



it's very interesting that two flowers from the same stem have differing characteristics. i guess that's why the possibilities are as limitless as there are crosses; even if the same parents of the same varieties were crossed over and over again?

daphne ~ genetics is a "deep well".

Yay!! I'm so glad to see this thread starting! I've been so bored and forced to look at catalogs for my iris eye candy fix. And you know how dangerous that is!! So far? I've filled many a cart, but only pushed "complete purchase" on one. I count that as a minor victory.

Daphne thank you for sharing!! Looking forward to more!

you're welcome tnlaura. tho' my blooming has started, my season in+between blooms is always sporadic.

The first bloom of Beverly Sills only had two standards so I didn't bother posting a photo of it as it looked odd. This one is much better. I'm glad I put it in the spot that I did because the colour blends well with the roses behind it.

I was outside briefly today, and was surprised to see TEAGAN poking up through some Bermuda Buttercup. (For those who don't know, BB is a non-CA native oxalis which is widely naturalized in the Bay Area here. I rather like it, but try to keep it confined to the creek banks. Somehow some of it got up into one of the raised beds next to the house, and even though I pull it out every spring (trying to get those pip things it sprouts from), still it comes back. )

Alas, no photo - by the time I was able to come back outside with the camera, it was getting dark AND I discovered that the camera didn't have a memory card in it. Maybe tomorrow, if I remember.

But you can use your imagination ...



Ignoring the rebloom on the CHARISMATIC seedling (most of which froze), I'm calling this the first iris bloom of 2023 here. (There may be something blooming down in The Pit or out in the Back 40, but I'm not up for navigating steps if I don't have to...)

Lola that looks absolutely gorgeous!!!

Lola - is that a rebloom? It looks lovely with the roses.

Leslie - it's the first time Beverly Sills has bloomed for me. I was hoping it would bloom last spring (September/October) but it didn't happen. I wasn't expecting anything until October 2023 but we are in the middle of summer and she decided to show me her beauty.

I have had some iris do that too. Hopefully she will get her bloom clock adjusted by next year. Though she really does compliment those roses!