Spring Dreaming 2

Our other thread was getting a bit slow with all the lovely Iris pics. How about some more?

I was very pleased with the brown tones of English Charm.

Wanda - the link in the old thread is broken and doesn't get you here. You might want to fix it so we don't lose anyone.

A reminder of Spring... Here's an early bloomer, Spuds and Butter on 3-29-04. This is a must have plant; the most vigorous in my garden. Super fragrance too.

This is a two year old clump of Spuds and Butter. It started out as one rhizome. When divided, it produced 27 new fans.

What a gorgeous color of yellow! Wished all of the new iris were that prolific.

I have an old blue iris [was on the farm so is now probably 70 yrs old] smells wonderful. When blooming you can smell it all over the yard.
Don't think that I have a picture of it, though.

Maxine

Dan, You take some wonderful iris shots!! (here and on the (iris) Database). It is great to see all these irise photos. Thanks to everyone who is posting them.

Great thread Wanda. I don't get to these threads all that often, but here is a photo I'd like to post. It's a broken color - - like Batik. (Only Batik is a Border bearded, this is a Tall bearded). It's named
Gnu Again. A pretty good grower for me.

zac - I have that same exact stone face art in my gardens!! lol

Abby Chant TB

Maxine

Headline Banner TB

Maxine

Maxine,

Just so you know, ABBEY CHANT is an IB, and HEADLINE BANNER is a BB.

Laurie

Thanks, Laurie.

I don't claim to be too smart on iris, only mark them what it says when I purchased them and recd. the papers.
Will correct my picture identifying same.

Maxine

I focus last summer to musch on daylilies, i can't believe i got so little iris pics.
But with the fever you guys are getting me in, and the ones i planted already in Oktober. Next year i will have more to offer. I did send already a email to ZEBRA's garden with my list. Gnu again will be mine too soon,Margie

I hope i made a good choice: ANACONDA LOVE, BEARYBEARY,BLACK FALLS, GNU AGAIN, GNUS FLASH, HIPPO'Z TUTU, KING TUSH, Millenium Falcon, NIGERIAN RASPBERRY, PYTHON'Z PARASOL, SERENGETI SPAGHETTI, SQUID SQUIRT, UNSTABLE GENE, ZANDRIA

O Margie, please just return to the first part of this threat, because i left a reply there.
That count's for you too Wanda.

I meant this one: Are Iris Invading your Garden? but you were already there

This message was edited Dec 23, 2004 5:26 PM

John'You "hang" with us for very long & you will find us infected with all kinds of fevers: daylilies, Lilliums, irises. LOL

"Gnu" only bloomed once before Walker the wonderdog chased a rabbit thru the beds & broke a few stalks. I expect to see more blooms next year, but the broken color was interesting.

Talk about spring dreaming, I just checked my iris database and realized I have 379 iris cultivars sleeping out in my garden that I've never seen bloom! Most of them have been added in just the last season or two. As much as I love seeing my old iris faithfuls blooming each spring, I get a special thrill out of seeing a first-time bloom on a recent addition. I can't WAIT to see how many newbies show me their lovely faces next spring!

Laurie

Laurie, I hope they all come through for you. What a lovely sight to look forward to. I now have 3 different iris to look forward and will be pleased as punch to see them. I have 3 iris clumps that I got from a dear friend who passed away last april. She wanted me to keep them going for her. I have no idea what they are called, but they are yellow and were lovely in her iris bed. I am hoping someone can ID them for me this next year when they bloom. I am also hoping someone will be able to ID the iris I got from grandma in '72. The third iris I have are siberian iris that I got from Wanda! Can't wait for spring.... :)

Laurie--do you allow visitors to your gardens? I've never seen that many iris in bloom at the same time! I think I have 300+ now. About 2 hundred of them have not bloomed yet in my gardens. I'm eagerly looking forward to spring too!

Wanda,

I've never seen that many in bloom at one time, either! I ended this growing season with 579 named iris cvs and about another 100 unknowns (of course, those numbers will decrease come spring with the winter kill). Over the years, I've grown and lost hundreds more iris cvs, mostly TBs which have a difficult time in my garden. This last season was a good one for survival but a relatively poor one for bloom - good survival because we finally had decent snow cover last winter that protected the irises; poor bloom because I dug and divided most of my irises in '03 so they weren't well enough reestablished to bloom this year.

I'm not expecting to see much bloom in my TB bed or my unknown bed next spring since I dug and divided them this summer, but the dwarf, median, and rebloomer beds should put on a decent show ... I hope. In this climate, though, I never know what to expect. It's more the rule than the exception for many irises to only bloom every second or third year in my garden, rather than every year. The MDBs and SDBs, though, are generally reliable every year once established. A number of the reblooming TBs (which of course don't rebloom here) are also pretty reliable bloomers every spring - moreso than the oncers.

I don't know how many of those 379 never-seen-befores will bloom next spring, but I'll be happy if 50 of them do.

Visitors are more than welcome in my garden as long as they understand what they're driving all the way out here to see. To be brutally honest, I'm a lousy, lazy gardener. My "perennial borders" are lost in seas of "native companion plants". My iris beds are laid out in narrowly spaced, straight rows with just enough room between to run the Mantis in some feeble attempt at weed control. In other words, there's a very good reason why the only photos you'll ever see me post are of individual blooms. No lovely garden scenes here, but plenty of beautiful irises. Tell you what, you come up here and rescue part of my perennial border next year, and I'll reward your efforts in irises. ;-)

Laurie

Laurie--sounds like you have your hands full! You certainly are persistent planting TBs if you lose that many and still go for it!

TBs like my clay soil and hot dry summers. I rarely lose any, but the wet springs & Walker can limit my blooms. I've added quite a few this year--all in mixed beds. It will be interesting to see how they bloom.

I had a heavy rebloom season this fall. I wonder how those clumps will perform in the spring....

Wanda,

TBs have a lot of trouble up here, esp after winters with minimal snowfall. The frigid temps and lack of insulation stresses them tremendously. Even those that manage to survive such winters are so weakened that any little bug or pathogen that comes along can kill them off during the next growing season. That's why I no longer purchase TBs. I will trade/barter for them on occasion, and iris friends have sent me hundreds over the years to replenish my beds after heavy losses, so I still have more TBs (including lots of named historics) in my beds than anything else. If I'm actually spending money, though, I buy dwarfs, medians (exclusive of BBs which tend to be as wimpy as TBs here), and beardless irises that do much better in my garden.

I, too, have heavy clay soil, but my irises HATE it! My biggest problem with clay is not dampness; it's compaction. With 10 cats, 4 dogs, and an abundant local deer population that takes particular delight in prancing through my iris beds, it takes no time at all for irises to suffocate in concrete-compacted clay. In the last couple years, I have started a new planting strategy that seems to be helping quite a bit. I dug and renovated all 6 iris beds over the last two summers. Instead of leveling them for replanting as I have done in the past, I tilled and raked the planting rows into raised windrows with narrow alleys running between each set of windrows. The windrows contain heavily amended, friable soil for the irises to root and expand easily, and the alleys tend to attract foot/paw/hoof traffic away from the windrows and plants.

We've had some mighty nippy temps so far (-27 when I went out to do barn chores last week) and not much snow cover, so we'll see which of the irises are still hanging in there come spring. We could use a foot of snow, but all we're getting at the moment is some lovely freezing rain. Ugh. It should change to snow tonight and give us 3-5" ... I hope.

Laurie

When i hear all that i am happy where i am 'Laurie'!

Last year i have designed a perennial border, it's near the sea. This garden was clay as deep digging was possible. So i mixed a lot of seasand and compost to the clay until the soil was pleasing. Though, i was a hell of a job but it worked very splendid. You can always try that on little piece from your border and compair the difference.

John,

You would not BELIEVE the amendments I have tilled into my clay over the years to try to create a decent growing medium - sand, perlite, gypsum, huge amounts of very well composted horse manure mixed with pine sawdust, sphagnum peat, alfalfa meal. It all helps for a while, but the organics break down quickly in my clay. Reamending is a constant process, and it still doesn't address the underlying clay which continues to compact readily under "high traffic" conditions.

I'm sure my soil is improving little by little, but modern TBs are not patient in my garden. They want fluffy soil and moderate temps RIGHT NOW, and it's unlikely they'll ever get either here. Thank goodness there are other irises to suit every climate and growing environment!

Laurie

Comfort yourself Laurie, because i have parts in my garden that are very fluffy where other plants doesn't grow. Frustrating grrr...because they want clay than again.

Diggin in wet clay is so nice & sticky. Digging in frozen clay is impossible. Digging in dry clay is like breaking cement. So many seasons and all bad if you have clay!

I've been amending with grass clippings & leaf mulches for the past few years. The grass clippings keep the weeds down plus keep the ground from drying out & cracking. My older beds are finally coming around, but the newer beds will take some work.

Abstract Art is a tough one. TB with strong stalks & big blooms.

Just so you don't think you have the corner on the market with poor soil. We started with blow sand [even a self respecting sand burr wouldn't grow] hauled many loads of red clay up from the farm, plus dryed manure, tilled after each spreading and then finished up with more red clay tilled in.
I dig a hole and most of the time plant with purchased soil. Plants seem to be happy now as they keep expanding and growing.

Happy New Year and may we all be capable of digging in the dirt in the spring of 2005.

Maxine

Start the New year with a flash of color ,this is more orange
then pic. shows. ( LIGHT BEAM )
" Happy New Year " to all my Dear Friends on DG>

Please post photos when you have 300 iris blooming.lol.
What a site that will be.I'd bet it's beautiful.
Happy New Year to you Tazzy and everyone else.Jody

I was dreaming thru my Iris photos of 2004. This Champagne Girl kind of stood out.

Wow, very pretty, Wanda!

Wanda your iris always look so healthy! Any pictures of the yellow one in the corner? I love the yellows and orange ones!

lovely iris, Wanda.

Wanda, these are really beautiful.... thanks for sharing...

fsr333, i follow this thread also every day and i do agree with your opinion. I dont reply each time, only because of the few pic i have about irises. and from some(historics) i got no name.
Hope i have more iris pics this spring

John, I always enjoy seeing a nice historic iris! I photograph & store all my cultivars. It's the only way I can remember what I have & not buy something else that looks the same!

I have a seperate photo file for: Iris, Daylilies, Lilies, Blooming bushes, Sun Perrenials & shade perennials. I also store the photos in segregated albums in case my computer messes up. I have stock photos of the ones that have not bloomed yet in my gardens. Those get replaced as my REAl blooms come in....

Hooked--the yellow one is vey vigorous and you are welcome to a root or two when Spring comes--Ola Kala.

Frivolite is a very old cultivar. It's hard for me to capture the beauty of the big speckled blooms, but here it is.

Wanda, i store them almost at the same way, but something must have gone wrong changing to another computer. Think i lost a part of june somehow :-(
I got a suspicion they have been overwritten, while i was takeing back up's(the wrong way).........that can only happen too me, aaaaaaaaaaa

This message was edited Jan 13, 2005 11:02 AM

Thanks Wanda, I'd be glad to trade you for the brown one you liked of mine or postage, either is fine with me! I have a lot of yellow but they are the paler ones.

Hooked--you got a trade! I love your historic brown iris & you'll love these HUGE Yellow beauties. I'll make a note to myself to dig for you in the spring.

Thanks, if there are any more I have, just let me know. I can't remember what I've posted for pics.

Oooh--- I love that one too! Hooked--we've got to talk.....

Wanda, just remind me when it's time to dig. I'll gladly trade any of the ones I have. I just call the brown one #4 and this one is #8. If you ask for 4 & 8 I'll know which ones you want. Like I said most are older ones and I'm sure anything you have to trade me would be great! Is there anything special you are looking for? Do you have any pics of the ones you're looking for?