Today I am talking about irises and inspiration.
A little about my history with the irises here. The spring after we moved in we discovered irises blooming in several places. It wasn’t just a couple different irises, but lots of different ones. The original owner (before the people we purchased this house from) must have been an iris lover. I had never had many, so it was so exciting to see and then count all of the different ones. If you search “irises” on this blog you will find lots of posts about them and my count.
In my first count back in 2010 I counted 38 different ones. Here is my count this year.
The reason for so few now is that we got rid of several of the iris areas. I also gave a lot away to both friends and to the annual plant sale. I tried to move and keep my favorites, but either they are gone or they’ve not bloomed this year. Several that I planted in the lavender area last year were those I wanted to keep. However, only five bloomed this year. Hopefully we’ll see more next year.
Unfortunately due to the cold winter, my lavender has died. I’ve pulled out all but one plant, and will be cleaning up this area soon and moving the irises giving them more space to grow.
But let’s get to the inspiration. Over the years I’ve been inspired by them. Back in 2011 I took a sketchbook challenge class, and jumped out of my comfort zone and sketched one of these beauties. Here is the link to the post.
This stitched iris was part of a review of Quilting Art in Stitches emags back in 2011. Here is a link to the blog post.
I also wrote a tutorial on Jacquard Solarfast using an iris as a subject. Blog post here.
Lastly, I used the irises to create colorways, dyeing fabric to match the irises. That post is here.
I really hated to see the irises go, but I look forward to seeing them and more next year.
I love irises and yours are lovely.
Luann recently posted..March Review
Hi Luann, Thanks!
make sure they are not planted too deep: just barely cover them, or even partially cover them
Your irises are really beautiful, and I love how you’ve dyed fabric to match.
Katherine, Yes, it’s so important not to plant them deep, and make sure the top of the rhizome is above ground. Back in 2010 when I saw all of these beautiful irises blooming here, I got with one of my fellow master gardener who was the iris lady. She taught me a lot about irises and gave me even more irises to add to my selection. I was so surprised those that I had moved to the lavender area last year bloomed this year. Usually I don’t get them to bloom until the following year. I just moved them there temporarily to get them out of pots they had been in for some time. However, now I’m going to make that an iris area so those that bloomed will stay but I’ll be working on the soil and move the ones that didn’t bloom and add some new ones.Looking forward to next spring!! Thanks for commenting.
Sherrie, Thanks. It was so much fun to do that.