Flower Friday : : Iris

Iris was the Greek goddess of the rainbow. Bearded iris come in so many different colors that must be why they were named for her. They are called 'bearded' because of the fuzzy row of bristles at the base of each petal. In the Victorian language of flowers, iris can represent faith, hope, courage and admiration. Yellow blooms convey passion, while white blooms are ideal for brides because they symbolize purity.  

When we moved here we felt that our garden was a bit bleak and spikey in its plantings. We have realized that this was partly because it wasn't nearly as well established as we thought and partly the spikey desert loving plants do well here. We found a number of potted bearded iris plants along with some half wine barrels flung into the ravine and replanted them.  They didn't bloom the first year, but we moved them to a shady spot underneath the arbor we had built and they rewarded us with spectacular magenta, yellow, white and blue blossoms. The one in my picture is still in the ravine under some oak trees where we must have overlooked it. Because of all the rain this year they have particularly long stems which is why I noticed them rising above the slope.

They have multiplied and grown each year to the point that they outgrew their half wine barrels and OilMan had to build new boxes for them. They are about to outgrow their boxes so, judging by how well the totally neglected ones in the ravine have done, we may just plant them in the ground. 

This is probably not the last picture of bearded iris I will be publishing this year....

Today is Arbor Day, something I noticed only because it is still one of those things they put on calendars, including the one from the bird store that hangs in our kitchen. As we drove over Fountaingrove today, we noticed a number of trucks with the names of various tree services (Urban Tree Farm, Atlas Tree Trimming, etc.) and a lot of people in hi-viz vests digging holes and planting new trees among the charred remains of the ones that burned in the fires. It looked as if a group of volunteers had gathered to plant donated trees in areas where the original trees weren't going to come back.

It was nice to see....