Irises 05/03/10

One of my very favorite things about spring time is watching all the Irises bloom. Each day can hold a new surprise for me when I walk out the door in the morning. Jamie and I are constantly adding to our Iris collection. Here are a few that are blooming in the garden right now.

‘Blueberry Bliss’

‘Owen’s Yellow’

‘Contraband Girl’

This is a beautiful unknown iris that was sent to us by a friend in Michigan. If you think you know the name feel free to shoot us a note.

‘Caesar’s Brother’ was a gift from Phillip’s garden. I really want to increase the Siberians and Japanese Irises on our garden.

‘Champagne Waltz’

‘ Not Good Show’ Turns out this is Sentimental Rose- It was marked wrong at the plant show.

Marilyn from Wheelchair Gardener sent me a picture of this Iris over a year ago. When we saw it, we thought it was the prettiest thing we had ever seen. Jamie ordered it online as a gift for me and this is the first bloom it’s produced for us. It’s called ‘Starship Enterprise’.

‘Slavok Prince’

‘War Chief’

‘Spartan’

‘Avalon Sunset’

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Iris ‘Megabucks’ is next on my wish list. Who knows, maybe I’ll order it today!

Blooming In Our Garden 04/19/10

Dorothy Frances Gurney
1858 - 1932

I’m so very happy things are starting to grow and bloom in the garden. Nothing makes me feel more alive than to walking among so many beautiful bright colors. In our garden we don’t really tend to have much of a color scheme going on. As a matter of fact, for the most part it looks like a kaleidoscope threw up in it, but Jamie and I like it that way. While we don’t try to place “complementary colors” beside each other we are learning the importance of large patches of color for impact and we are working on that.

Jamie and I are very fond of Irises and they tend to steal the show when they start blooming in the spring. We currently have 55 different irises, 35 of which are bearded. We know the names of all them with the exception of 2 or 3. When Jamie and I first started the garden we cataloged every single plant that went into it and have continued to do it to this day. The original reason we did it was to make certain we didn’t buy the same daylily twice. Now, I’m glad we did because it’s a handy reference list when I can’t remember the name of something.

Some of the irises are looking a little poorly this year and I’m not certain why. Maybe it was the cold winter or maybe they have some type of bug. I’ll have to do some research and see what I come up with as the answer. Here are a few that are blooming this week.

'Clarence'

'Beverly Sills'

'In Your Dreams'

'Invitaion'

'Sugar Blues'

This is an Unknown that came from an online friend.

'Canned Heat'

'Point In Time'

Now this particular iris is not one from our garden. Our friend Carol was up for the weekend and we went to visit Jasmine Hill Garden to see the spring flowers. If any of you know what it is I would positively love to know the name? Better yet, if you happen to have it I would love even better to have a fan or two! No, I’m not too proud to ask or too shy for that matter. If you have it, I’m certain we could do some horse trading.:-)

Okay, so now I have another question for you. When is a rose not a rose? Give up? When it’s an azalea! In February of 2008 Jan at Always Growing did a post on this plant and Jamie and I both just fell in love with it. I love Jan’s blog, she has a knack for finding the most interesting plants and we have several in our garden that are there because we saw them on her blog. If you’ve never been to her blog pop in and tell her hello. Without that post neither we nor our friend Carol would have this beautiful plant in our garden.

'Amelia Rose'

Isn’t it just gorgeous? We bought a second one that we are training to grow into a tree. It’ will take a few years but it’ll get there eventually.

I’ll leave you with this picture of ‘Trouper Orange’. I hope this post finds you well, happy and loving every minute you spend in the garden.

Idle Rambling...

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, finally. The garden is well on its way to waking up at Our Eden. I’ve been strolling around taking note of all the things that need to be done. We had a particularly cold winter this go around and I’m pretty certain we lost several huge banana trees. I’m going to give it a little while longer before we plant something to take their places. I tried to divide them last year to share with a friend and I keep remembering how deep down the roots were, it’s hard for me to believe they could have frozen that far down. Fingers crossed…

The ‘Tangerine Beauty’ has more blooms on it than it’s ever sported before.

Jamie and I got several new Irises last year and I’m looking forward to enjoying the blooms this spring. ‘Autumn Tryst’ is a new addition to our garden; I’m still not certain where the autumn part comes in to the picture. It blooms in the spring and when I think of autumn I think of reds, oranges and yellows. Jamie planted it in the new bed we put across the back of the garden. We still need 12 daylilies to go in it. I want something spectacular though. We need really unusual ones that stand out when you see them. We’ve picked out some pretty good ones and I’ll be ordering them tomorrow.

This weekend our very dear friend of many years, Carol will be coming to visit. She’ll be arriving this afternoon. This weekend is the annual plant sale from the Birmingham Botanical Gardens; we always go and come back with a truck load. I hope eveyone has a fantastic weekend!

A Walk With Old Faithful

I have two cameras. My newest is the Sony DSC-H50/B and the second one is the great grandfather to the new one an old DSC-F717. I love my old camera and I only pull it out every now and then to take photos with it. The LCD screen is failing and it will no longer charge unless the battery is attached to an external battery charger. I decided to drag it out and walk around the garden a little while, just for old time’s sake. When I got the H50 nothing you could have ever said would have convinced me it could take the photos that its grandfather does, now I can look at the pictures and see a noticeable difference in the color. The H50 has better color, but it still can’t stop a bird in flight like the 717.

Jamie got the windowsill containers planted for the summer. We generally go for the bright colored flowers, but this year we decided to do something a little different. I think Jamie did a fantastic job and I think these will stand up to the full sun a little better.

My grandmother’s old rose bush seems to be happy where it is and it’s sporting its first bloom of the season. I have no idea how old this rose it, but my grandmother got it from her mother when she was married in 1931. When she passed and her house was sold I dug it up and moved it to my home.

This is a new Dahlia we added to the garden this year, ‘Sumatra’.

Variegated Solomon’s Seal

'Crimson Queen' and Bridal Wreath

'Miss Saigon'

This is a wonderful old Iris that I’m just tickled to have newly planted in our garden. It was given to us last fall by a very generous reader that wishes to remain anonymous. We planted them on both sides of the patio sidewalk; I get to enjoy them every morning. The color is even better than I thought and I just love it!

Hello Yellow

Is it just me or does yellow seem to be a very dominant color in spring? The color Yellow symbolizes renewal and hope so it’s only appropriate that it be a leading color in spring. In Elizabethan England, by law only the wealthy were permitted to wear this color. Holistic healers believe yellow is the color of peace. Studies in psychology suggest it increases concentration, that’s why legal pads are yellow. It also speeds up metabolism. The list goes on and on… I also read yellow is the most difficult color for the eye to process so it can overpower other colors if overused. Everywhere I look the garden seems to be filled with yellow.

Here are the same old yellow irises you guys see in spring of every year. These guys seem to bloom forever in our garden. They sporadically produce flowers until fall.

This tattered ‘King Alfred’ daffodil caught my attention for some reason. It’s still holding its color despite the wind beating it relentlessly against the rock behind it. I felt such diligence should be rewarded with a photo.

The weather was just perfect outside yesterday. Our new baby, Maxx was enjoying the spring day too. He seemed to be particularly interested in the scent of the ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils. This photo was a complete accident. I was actually taking a picture of the yellow iris when he decided to take a sniff of the daffodil.

Maxx can sniff the daffs all he wants I prefer the scent of the jasmine.

Is yellow a dominant color in your garden? I love it, yellow can bring sunshine to your garden even on a cloudy day.

Gardening Gone Wild Photo Contest

This month’s theme for the Picture This Photo Contest is “Awakening”. I chose this image of a frost covered daffodil as my entry. Good luck to everyone and thanks to our wonderful competition hosts.