APRIL IRISES

Spring Irises, Digital Photography © 2013 SuZan Alexander

This weekend I stopped by the log cabins because they have a lot of white irises, commonly referred to as “White Cemetery Iris”, in bloom. These lovely white beauties last a short time in the spring, so you can’t procrastinate. How do I know this? Because that is precisely what I did last year and missed getting any photos. Anyway, there were these two purple irises that really stood out, so I of course I tried to capture them (see the white ones in the background). I really didn’t think much about it until I got home and uploaded my photos. As I was adding keywords, I did a quick search to make sure I was correctly identifying the flowers and found this on the Aggie Horticulture site:

“An often-repeated gardeners’ tale about White Cemetery iris is that they “take over” patches of purple iris until very quickly the purple blooms are gone for good. Even though this should not happen if iris don’t set seed, there are plenty of people who swear they have seen individual plants which began with purple flowers, then with purple and white, until finally only white remained.”

Could this patch be in the midst of a “take-over”? Have you seen any other “take-overs” in your area? Well, that’s it for useless trivia for now. Enjoy the irises because they don’t last long.