Well, May has been a wild weather ride so far, hasn’t it? Our average latest frost date here in the Twin Cities is May 15, but as I am writing this, Monday morning the 20th, I just removed frost protection from some of my IB iris buds, and up north in Duluth they had three inches of snow. Of course, it’s been much worse for those of you in the south, too much rain and terrible storms. I hope your gardens (and you) are withstanding the onslaught.
But we had a lovely string of days this past week, and my SDB (standard dwarf bearded) irises have begun opening up. One of the iris lovers’ greatest pleasures must be going out in the early morning to see who has arrived overnight. This is especially fun for me this spring because during the past two years I have been adding irises to a newly expanded front bed. I do this when I divide them in July or August, and when I get new irises that I have ordered, and since I generally am so busy with all sorts of garden and assorted other duties, I plop the newly dug or received rhizomes here and there in the beds, sometimes forgetting to write down where I put them. Then the next spring, it’s updating the garden charts. This spring I have been surprised to see SDB Muppet and SDB Grape Cordial practically taking over the front bed. I didn’t remember planting so many of them.
A few of the SDBs recently blooming:
According to my “date of bloom” register, I supposedly have 182 different SDB irises. Of course, many of them are gone from the garden, most killed by rot in those fluctuating and maddening swings of temperature that sometimes leaves irises standing in water; I suppose others may have been dug up by critters of one type or another, or have bloomed out. (The despicable iris borers don’t bother SDBs as much as they do larger irises. Perhaps the rhizomes are too small.) They may be long dead, but I never remove an iris from my lists, just in case one pops up somewhere that I can’t recognize. I need to know names of any iris I have ever bought or added to the garden so that I can identify them. I know they are just as pretty without a name, but updating the lists and charts gives me something fun to do during our long winters, and when you enter an iris in a show, it’s important to know the name in order to qualify for ribbons.
Though I freely admit my iris obsession, I do have other spring bloomers in my garden! But with such a late spring, there is not much to photograph yet. When this diary posts on Saturday morning, I will be rushing around preparing for out-of-town visitors so my replies may be spotty and late, but I will read everything when I have a chance! Have a good Memorial Day weekend!