Blowout sales
‘Twas the season for blowout sales. Garden Djinn recently posted her good fortune in this regard. Pre-holiday sales abounded as stores tried to clear space for new seasonal offerings.
Having filled almost (the operative word!) every available space and container with tulips and daffodils, I was restricted to a bag of the lovely 'Tete-a-tete' to tuck in among larger cousins.
Yes. Limited by space. Restricted to one small bag. Heh.
Living close to the Jackson and Perkins mothership is always a mixed blessing. Thinking myself safe from the call of the sale, I wandered through the bins of marked down bulbs and stumbled upon iris rhizomes for fifty cents. Not your nameless, generic irises but named and award winning cultivars. What gardener can resist a 700% markdown?! A quick trip home and a few Googles later I was able to come up with colors and hence a planting scheme.
I am unashamed to admit that I really love bearded irises. There, I’ve said it. They are sometimes considered passé or even blowsy or garish. To any reader who feels this way - I beg you to reconsider. The showy flowers are complex, with satiny petals suitable for stunning photographs, and the subtle fragrances, which differ among the cultivars, can be enchanting.
And they are easily hybridized. I am so intrigued by the very idea. If a gardener feels that she has produced a winner she can submit it to the American Iris Society. If deemed worthy, the hybrid can be registered and named. I have always intended to try my hand at hybridizing. Perhaps this spring...and the naming might be fun (Eclectic Moon, Witches Wine, Sweet City?).
My finds:
Sivlerado - light blue and white
Rip City - red
Goodnight Moon - yellow
Dazzling Gold - yellow and red
Sweeter than Wine - cream/purple bicolor
Gnu Blues - pale blue streaked with dark blue
Impressionist – rose /raspberry bicolor
Witches Wand – Violet-black, orange beard
posted by a gardener @ 10:25 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Bargains! Excellent!
And iris. Such dependable flowers. I am slowly collecting cast-offs and offshoots as folks get rid of them. I would like to get some of the rebloomers, but I am happy with my current batch of one-shots.
My house came with several large stands of Siberian Iris, which is even more of a cast-iron plant.
My garden includes a specimen of the iris grama (gama? something like that... not coming up on Google), but I've never managed to catch it in bloom. A tiny, reclusive thing, this one. But its small green spears of foliage add their own note to my wild planting.
Hi Jenn
Could your specimen iris be Iris graminea? I ran across this at Plantdelights while researching irises:
This fascinating little iris, native to the Caucuses, is little-known outside Europe, where it has been awarded the prestigious Award of Garden Merit (AGM) by the Royal Horticultural Society. The narrow foliage makes a tight upright clump to 15" tall. In June, the purple narrow-petaled flowers are nestled down in the foliage. Despite not being able to see the flowers without parting the leaves, the fragrance, which has been described between grapes and plum tarts, is certainly evident. An open, slightly moist site with acid-to-neutral soils seems to be preferred.
If so, sounds like a special iris indeed!
That would be the one.
Nice foliage. I've not noticed the perfume... And I wasn't aware of the bloomtime. I'll have to pay better attention this year.
The border it is in flanks the driveway, and the prevailing summer winds would loft the scent to my neighbors. I wonder if they've noticed it?
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