The second iris flush

The glorious spring colour of the iris continues.

First out are the rather sensible low growing dark rich purple fellas.

And all the while, growing taller and taller in among the forest of strapping vertical leaves are these beauties.

The pale blue stately blooms.


Hmm, is that out of focus?

Let me stand back a bit.

I planted these tall ones on the edge of the walnut path. (Ignore the peep of red bulldozer in the shot. We are pretending they have left the farm….)

And as they get overcrowded on their narrow edge every year, I divide and fling them about.

You can’t go anywhere in this garden without getting a socking blue vision almost at chest height.

The latest area I planted up using these iris as an edging plant is up on the oak bank.

It’s always a lottery as one can’t tell what colour will emerge.

 

Which bring us to that strange leaning one on the left. That drunken yellow.

I have heaps. And at first I was appalled by the very sight of this bright bright colour. Egg yolk yellow? Help me out here.

But I’ve come to view them with a sort of wry affection.  After all, if you love irises in this hot climate, you are only going to enjoy them for about two weeks anyway.  So why not just laugh at the sheer audacity of this plant to throw up such a stunningly tall bloom.

Overbred of course. Because if you live anywhere near a strong breeze (the mistral, for example) then they blow over at the least gust.

I have no idea how I managed to plant this clump on the edge of Alice’s path and actually get all yellow ones. You would have thought I planned it.

Who on earth is organised enough to label all the their iris in the garden and rogue out the wrong colours?

Which brings me to this.

 

Isn’t this one a beauty?  I’ve been keeping an eye out for this one gorgeous crimson plant. It is growing out of the rock on the edge of the iris bank linking the shade garden and the barn garden.

And believe me, this is one plant that now has a stick plunged in right in front of it. As soon as is polite I will be having that one grubbed up, divided and planted somewhere more suitable.

I think there are more on the orchard edge too, so that will be a thrill. All I can see right now are plump buds looking very, very exciting.  You will almost think I had planned a successional planting of one of my favourite spring flowers.