The Iris of April part 1

 "What in your life is calling you, When all the noise is silenced, the meetings adjourned...the lists laid aside, and the wild Iris blooms by itself in the dark forest, What still pulls on your soul? 

                                                                                                Rumi

It's Iris season, a new one opening every day now. The weather finally produced a decent enough weekend to get some actual work done and I spent most of it logging a 100 year old patch of overgrown prunes that had eaten the dog run behind the shop. Got to do a little bit of planting in the rock garden and the sun pushed some of the Iris into bloom. 

Iris 'Thor'

Jane McGary had given me a start of this wonderful treasure which I believe is a regiolocyclus hybrid between Iris sari and Iris korolkowii dating back to the 1930's. It's only about 10" tall and absolutely stunning. I had planted some out in the garden and it promptly disappeared on me and the mother plant I kept in the greenhouse looked to have rotted, but I saved one tiny little peice and now it's growing strongly and blooming. Speaks to the point of never giving up and one of the maxims for rare plant/alpine growers, always try different things with a rare plant, if you can stick some cuttings, or try a division in a different place you increase your odds immeasurably. 

Iris babadagica

This one I just acquired from Kathy Allens wonderful rock garden plant sale in Central Point this year. It's a beautiful and tiny little iris, only about 5" tall at this point. Named for Mt. Babdag in the Caucus Mts. research shows it is considered by some to be a smaller subspecies of Iris aphylla. Super charming and diminutive. 

Dwarf Iris in the rock garden

I wish I knew the name on this one, it came from my friend Mary Anne, who is an Iris buff, and a tremendous volunteer for the Lord and Schryver conservancy garden I used to manage. It's a dynamite bloomer in the rock garden, only 12" tall and making a great show. 

Iris sp. #4

Another unknown but dynamite selection, I got this from Kathy Allen last year, it's a 10" and the very light brown and purple on the falls are super cool. 

What pulls on my soul these days is the tinge of spring that is finally hitting here and getting to see all the hard work of the past few years in the rock garden finally starting to come in as it matures. I put the Iris of April Part 1 because there are probably at least 30 more to come, so this is just a teaser. 

I'm off to Canada to pick up Anya who is finishing her Freshman year at UBC. It's hard to believe how fast the time flies now days. It was seemingly a few years back that she was headed off to preschool, the milestones pass like water under a bridge now, kindergarten, grade school, junior high, and high school flew by and now the the College years are going like something Chuck Yeager would pilot. I keep trying to tell her to soak it all up, as these years are the best ones, freedom without too much responsibility is something that you really only enjoy in those college years. You have to savor it all and enjoy every minute of it. 

Back to rain and mid 50's after a weekend of sunny skies and highs in the low 70's. 

Cheers, 

Mark