>Fer over at My Little Garden in Japan is hosting a “blog carnival” today:
Show us the best of your garden, your favorite flower, vegetable, bush, tree, cactus, shrub, herb, moss, algae, fern, fruit, root, creeper, climber, grass, weed, bulb or any other plant you love (or more than one if you prefer).
I’ll give it a go, and will pass on the request to spend a little time ranting about your favorite plants.
Well, as the title indicates I want to tell you a bit about my iris, a family of plants that I really love. I find them so utterly graceful with their shard-like leaves and exotic-looking and exuberant flowers.
Sadly this is the only picture of a flowering iris I have for this post. The yellow iris pseudacorus down by the little stream. Native to Europe, this wetland iris has leave up to a meter in height and the flower stems typically reach 1.5 meters. When we bought the summer house, they were already growing behind the annex, and this does seem to be it’s natural habitat so it will remain there, combining with the tall reeds to make a sort of screen towards the neighbours on the other side of the stream.
Iris Germanica is one of the plants that was rescued from the bulldozers back in September. The rhizomes were put in a temporary bed for the winter, but hopefully they will be moved in early spring once the last frost is off the ground and maybe if I’m lucky it will bloom the first summer. Time will tell.
Like the iris pseudacorus, this is a rather large and perhaps slightly coarse iris, but this one is dark blue and seems to thrive more in regular garden soil, rather than in the somewhat boggy habitat of the pseudacorus.
Iris hollandica, a cultivated bulbous iris, currently only lives in a bag in the workshop in the annex. They should really go into a piece of well-drained soil (which in my garden means a pot), but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
I’m thinking it might end up in the same pot as the gladiolus callianthus in the courtyard. Both are not completely hardy, so this means I can put out the pot once frost is gone, enjoy the iris hollandica in late spring/early summer and the Abyssinian gladiolus in late summer. As the foliage is quite similar for both plants, it should make for a harmonious cohabitation.
This is Iris sanguinea in situ in my parents’ garden before I divided it and replanted most, bringing two root clumps with me for our garden. I’m not sure why this species got it’s bloody name, but it’s one of those plants that I grew up with in my parents’ garden, and it forms wonderfully big clumps of intertwined roots that needs to be divided every so often in order to keep it blooming at its maximum.
It has been put in a temporary position until I can plant it out in the yet-nonexistent Ambitious Border, where I hope it will be able to make an impact already next summer.
As a small aside, can I just mention how amazing it is to have dived head-first into an international garden blogging community? It seems that this blog mainly has US readers, but according to Blogspot Stats there are also readers from India, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Australia and many more countries around the world. And now this entry is sparked by an entry in a blog about balcony gardening in Japan… I look forward to continuing this world-tour of gardens via the internet!
(Entry title is borrowed from the poem Iris, Most Beautiful Flower by Edith Buckner Edwards.)
>Hello! Those iris are beautiful!Is so nice you have a lot of diferent varieties, and even more that they are all native. I think they will thrive in your garden. Please keep us posted on how they do.thank you very much for your input for the carnival! I appreciate it very much
>Are you familiar with Iris pseudata, a new cross between pseudacorus and Japanese Iris (I. ensata) I've tried one culitvar so far and am amazed with how vigorous it is in the garden and it would be even more so near water… it is sterile apparently so one does not need to be concerned about them becoming a garden 'thug'. It also blooms for a goodly period of time. If interested in knowing more, check out Ensata Gardens on the net. I've always enjoyed the I. pseudacorus, but they've never bloomed very long for me… I expect to try a few more of these pseudatas next season! L
>I'm glad you were able to rescue some of your iris from a bulldozer — that is a terrible demise for such a stately plant. These are also my stepfather's favorite flower. Very beautiful!
>Hello from Canada! (another country you can add to your list of readers today) I find it constantly amazing that here we are looking at flowers in gardens around the world, sharing our stories. and yet I recognize your sweet irises growing half way across the world from me!
>Iris are beautiful flowers! I'm so glad you highlighted them for the blog carnival.
>Gorgeous flowers. I don't see yellow iris often in gardens around my neighborhood. While I don't grow them I am partial to the siberian irises, but yours is tempting me to add it to my garden.
>Great plants are the Iris, time we had some more in our garden.