Passalong/ historic iris Part II

Quaker Lady, introduced in 1909, is one of the most beautiful iris in existance. It's very generous with its flowers and the colors have an almost magical glow about them.
 

 

 

This iris, pictured with Quaker Lady above, doesn't have a fragrance that I can detect but the pink color is beautiful.
 

 

 

Dogrose (not the same as the iris above) is one of the earliest pinks, introduced in 1930. It has the fine scent of its I. pallida ancestor and like Quaker Lady is a very generous bloomer. A mature clump is breathtaking. There is a smoothness about the form and color that really makes this iris stand out in the same way that Quaker Lady and Helen Collingswood do.


I received this beautiful iris in a trade. I don't know what it is but it's lovely. (Update: It's a dead ringer for Cloudcap, a 1947 iris available at Bluebird Haven Iris Gardens for $3 in 2011).
 

 

 

Passalong/ historic iris Part I

 

Most of the iris in my garden I've acquired either from family or through trades, although in the last few years I have acquired some historic iris from Bluebird Haven, Arygle Acres, and Superstition Iris. I find many of the modern iris to be beautiful but historic iris have a grace and simplicity to their beauty that is hard to match. Any iris introduced over 30 years ago is considered historic, but many of my favorites were introduced 1900-1930.

I never used to think of iris being fragrant, are at least not pleasantly so, until I moved an iris that had naturalized in the ditch up top by the mailbox into the garden. It's a border bearded or intermediate bearded, judging from the size of the flowers and stalks, a bright orchid self that has a truly amazing fragrance. The fragrance of the flowers is strong it actually wafts, and it's delicious. Definitely a pallida descendent -- the fragrance is sweet and like grapes. Since then I've been interested in collecting fragrant bearded iris and have learned that they have many different scents. The white iris from my husband's grandmother is very wonderfully fragrant but not at all like a pallida. I received a freebie iris with an order that is named Sunset Sky that smells like lemon cake.

Great Lakes is a recent purchase and the Dyke's Medal winner for 1942. I also have its grandparent Conquistador, from which Great Lakes inherited its very tall flower stalks and enormous flowers, but is a paler lavender blue than the vivid blue-violet of Great Lakes.

Conquistador
 

 

Great Lakes
 

I acquired this iris in a trade. At first I only liked the fragrance, which is very nice, but the color has grown on me.
 

This iris is probably Indian Chief, or one so much like it that it might as well be Indian Chief. I had no idea I had it; must have picked it up at one of the swaps. I like it far more than I would have thought without seeing the iris in person. The color has a wonderful warm glow to it.
 

Helen Collingwood is one of the most beautiful iris among both moderns and historics.
 

This blue-violet iris from Gene's grandmother fades from dark to light but is beautiful in all of the gradations of its color. It has a very nice fragrance and a sheen to its petals -- not as pronounced as Dusky Challenger but noticeable nevertheless.
 

 

 

 

This iris (not the same as the brighter yellow pictured above) is from my grandfather. I thought for a while it was Pride of Ireland but it's not ruffled enough. This iris probably predates Pride of Ireland. This and Dusky Challenger are two of my latest-blooming iris. If someone described this iris to me (pale yellow with a green cast) I would think it sounds ghastly, but the color is lovely and goes with everything.
 

 

This last iris is a bicolor from my husband's grandmother. It's not President Pilkington or any of the usual suspects, but so many iris are introduced every year that it's often very difficult to ID unlabelled iris. I love the delicacy of its color.
 

Eva's White Iris

My husband's grandmother always had a garden. I only saw it in her declining years, but Achillea and money plant grew all through it and still provided a lot of color in spring. The iris, which she grew in two long rows on either side of the lawn and around the tobacco storehouse, hadn't bloomed in many years because they needed dividing. Her husband had always used the tractor with blade attachment to divide the iris, but he was too ill to get out on the tractor for a few years before his death. When my husband's grandmother died the family dug most of the iris to put in their gardens -- the land was sold at a very high price for development anyway -- and I got several lovely iris. I was expecting to get Iris albicans, or I. kochii, or Crimson King, or all three, but she didn't have any of those. Instead I got a blue-violet, a yellow, a pale bicolor, and a white. All are very well suited to my garden because these had thrived on the heavy clay of western Wake County, so they could obviously deal with moisture and not rot out. The white iris is my favorite. It is a magnificent iris; the flowers are large, with a wonderful perfume that is not at all like a pallida, and it grows and thrives just like Jesse's Song. Those two are by far the most numerous of the iris that I have in my garden.

 

 

 

 

I'd love to know the name of this iris, but all I have been able to find out is that from its appearance it looks to have been hybridized in the 1950's.

Jesse's Song

Jesse's Song is a Dyke's Medal winner and one of the toughest and most prolific iris for the Southeast there is.

 

 

 

Ten years ago I started with one rhizome of Jesse's Song from Cooley's. Now I have a whole garden full. Jesse's Song increases like crazy and can take more moisture than many other bearded iris can.

A view of the big perennial bed looking toward the neighbor's pasture, just as the iris are starting to gear up.
 

Bed next to the neighbor's pasture
 

 

Climbing Old Blush

 

Climbing Old Blush is one of the earliest roses to bloom in my garden. I first saw this rose in person at the entrance to the display gardens at Niche Gardens, where it was spectacular. The smallish flowers (about 2 1/2 " wide) have a cupped old rose form when new and become more blowsy with age. Helpmefind describes the fragrance as mild but I find the fragrance to be strong the day after the flowers open. Old Blush does not have a damask rose scent but the fragrance is fruity and delightful.

I enjoy looking at pictures of this rose from this spring, because now in July it is being stripped by caterpillars. It will recover and re-bloom in the fall.

 

Looking through the arbor to the garden beyond. Climbing Old Blush is just starting up in this picture.
 

 

 

 

The flowers eventually fade to a cool pink which as just as lovely as the initial color.
 

 

Crimson King and Iris kochii

First iris bloom of the season: Crimson King. Not the best substance and form in the world but who cares? nothing can beat it for color and fragrance. Give CK a bit of afternoon shade and it holds up well. I first saw this iris in a big border outside an administrative building (an historic home off Franklin Street) at UNC-CH. In spite of the fact that the border was getting shade from a nearby oak, the iris were blooming like crazy. It was love at first sight. CK will always have a place in my garden.
 

 

 

Iris kochii is another very early bloomer. Here is it growing with Crimson King (four blooms of CK on top, two of I. kochii on the bottom). I. kochii lacks fragrance but has better form and and a more bluish color than CK. Both are traditional passalong plants in the south, although I got mine from iris nurseries that sell historic iris.
 

 

An Ode to Purple

Purple is my favorite color in the garden, any shade from blue-violet to magenta.

I wish I knew the name of this pansy cultivar.
 

It's not really apparent in the picture below, but the flowers and leaves of Early Blue Violet (Viola palmata) look a lot like Bird's Foot Violet, although the flowers don't have the striking two-toned coloration of its cousin. However, rather than liking poor sand like Bird's Foot Violet, it loves wet clay subsoil.
 

We didn't have the common blue violet growing on our farm when we moved in, just Viola palmata and Marsh Violets. Marsh Violet flowers aren't very big but the plants flower a lot for their tiny size and come in shades of white to blue to violet-blue to this purple.
 

This plant needs no introduction. We grow ours as a shrub and mow around it to keep it under control. Unfortunately the flowers get frozen about every other year.
 

 

The Phlox divarcata in the middle is 'Louisiana'; the one on the left is 'London Grove Blue' and the one on the right 'Clouds of Perfume'.
 

 

Homestead Purple started blooming here in March, Blue Princess (the lighter one) in April, and both are still producing flushes of bloom in July.
 

 

View of year-old planting on the east side of the house with verbena and woodland phlox in bloom, to vegetable garden on the right, the big perennial bed (barely visible in this shot) to the left, and one of our horse pastures in the distance.