An unapologetic plant geek shares advice and opinions on gardening, the contrived and the natural landscape, as well as occasional topics from the other side of the gate.

May 12, 2010

Not My-ris

Louisiana Iris (6)


Finally after weeks of no rain, it poured tonight, and I was glad to see it. Thankfully it was not accompanied with tornadoes or floods, although Loretta could have done without the thunder and lightening. It was getting desperate around here, especially for May. This afternoon I passed a highway crew cutting grass along the roadside, and it looked as if they were harvesting autumn wheat; there were few blades of green. Saturday night we had a bizarre storm on the west side of the city. The wind was strong and the sky was filled with this amber colored dust that looked like smoke, making you think you were in a Riyadh sandstorm or some kind of brown fog. Unfortunately I was caught without camera, but did see a woman photographing the weird color and glowing light from the railroad tracks. As quickly as it arose it was gone.

Louisiana Iris


The past weeks at work have mostly been about keeping everything watered, along with helping customers and all the other spring tasks that need to be done. We have a few things we do not need to worry about as they keep their feet wet on the banks of a stream that forms part of our irrigation system. Several years ago we planted Pickerel Weed, Horse Tail and Louisiana Iris as part of an effort to make the stream look more natural. The plants have more than thrived, especially the Horse Tail and the Iris. Right now the Iris are in full bloom, and I make a point of going by there several times a day. Even though I tried to look them up, their names are lost to us and I could not make a positive ID. Does anyone have a clue?

Louisiana Iris (3)

18 comments:

  1. Les,

    No clue on these irises they are beautiful, would love to have such a beauty in our garden.

    Wish we had gotten that rain. In the past 40 days we have got less than one inch here. A record low rain fall for April in 120 years of record keeping. I'm amazed our sugar snap peas are 6 foot tall mostly from hand watering.

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  2. Those Louisiana iris are so pretty! Mine are beginning to bloom too. Love them in the garden.

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  3. Such a good year for irises. We have plenty of rain.

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  4. You're about two weeks ahead of us. I'm expecting to see irises in bloom next weekend, though the Iris pseudacorus started last week.

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  5. Thank god for the rain! I loved all the thunder and lighting!

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  6. We ahd rain last night too!! Skyler spent most of the night in the bathtub....he doesn't like the thunder either. Not sure how much we got, my raingauge broke.
    I am surprised you didn't say the Pickerel Weed took over the garden. I don't know the variety of Iris, they are very pretty. I like the dual colors.

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  7. Could the dark blue iris be Sinfonietta?-- Randy

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  8. Gorgeous irises! It sounds like a busy time of year for you too. I'm looking forward to my irises.

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  9. Glad you hear that you got some much needed rain. The iris are beautiful.

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  10. Gorgeous Irises Les. Glad the blooms were demolished by the storms last night. We got tons of rain here, all my barrels are full again. :) Had to cut a huge bouquet of Peonies to bring indoors. Boo-hoo, lol. I was starting to think that this was a bad omen to the kickoff of summer.

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  11. No idea as to their identity, but they are beautiful.

    We're dry as a bone here, I think it's been 4 weeks since we had any rain.

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  12. I don't know any names, but the pics are lovely. Water plants can get out of control fast. I used to have horsetail, but it kept trying to jump out of its pot and escape into the other plants' pots, so finally I got rid of it.

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  13. Oh, just exquisite Iris!! I hate thunder and lightning too! I wonder what that amber color matter was? Did you ever find out?

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  14. Les now that you have another day off maybe you can cruise this Louisiana iris site and find the names Zydeco Louisiana Iris

    The guy found my Maui iris and gave me the name. Clyde, my Maui iris was named Clyde. He may find this post too.

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  15. Thank you everyone for stopping by and commenting, and those of you with links and suggestions I appreciate them. Sorry that I did not return your comments individually, time is short right now.

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  16. Beautiful iris pictures. Could the bi-color be Easter Tide? There are not too many with that color combination. A couple of others are Just Helene and Gulf Moonglow.

    Patrick
    www.zydecoirises.com

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  17. Patrick,
    Thanks for the suggestions. I will look them up and also see if they are ones we may have once carried.

    Les

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