Violet Iris

Violet Iris

June 30, 2013 | 4 images

Just before I left for Stamford about a month ago, I took some photos of the Irises in my back yard. I forgot to post them, but they are some of the best photos I’ve managed to get of my Irises so far. This spring we had an extended winter, with some particularly cold weather for so late in the year. As late as the last week of April, we had a couple of deep freezes with temperatures ranging from -1° to 5° F. Such temperatures are not unusual for a Colorado winter, but unheard of for late spring! Our last snow storm was in the first week of May! This extended cold and deep freezes slowed and delayed the arrival of all the green growth…trees, flowers, bulbs. It seems once they finally had a chance to grow, they grew extra hard, with extra effort, and in the case of my flowers…with extra flowers. Usually my Iris stalks get about 4-6 flowers each. This year, they started out with 8-10 flowers, and would often keep growing new buds after the first generation bloomed and dried out. Some stalks must have flowered over a dozen times…something I’ve never seen before.

The blooms of an iris are quite beautiful, too. Close up, they almost look like some kind of sea flower related to the Anemone. I have one main variety in my yard…a deep violet, along with a less frequent purple. Both are stunning. I also planted a few other varieties last year, and hope they will grow in and start blooming by next year. I’ll probably mix in a few more varieties, to get rid of the dichromatic green and violet wash my yard gets in the spring. Along the same lines, I also planted a variety of tulip and daffodil last October, a variety of Hyacinth as well as some Grape Hyacinth (a small variety that produces towers of beautiful tiny blue grape-shaped bell flowers). A few back corners of my yard also had Tiger Lilies…and I’ve distributed them throughout my yard (which will hopefully be blooming soon here…as they are a late bloomer.) This year, only the Irises really bloomed. I had a few tulip and daffodils that bloomed early in April, however their flowers and most of the leaves were damaged pretty severely by frost, so no photos of them. Maybe next year.

While this site doesn’t really support vertical photos, here are a few more Irises in that format. For whatever reason, maybe because of the tighter crop, I think these kinds of flowers look better in a vertical photo than in a horizontal one: