It's hardly rational, but I always manage to have moments of silent panic each year when my Louisiana irises start to bloom. I blame the blue ones, because they show up early. Too early in fact. About two weeks before the white ones.
And I really love the white ones. So, every year, there's a two week period when I manage to convince myself that maybe I've done something wrong, and the white ones won't appear at all. Silly boy.
Double delight this morning, two white Louisiana irises.
It was only few days ago that I wondered 'had I accidentally thrown out the white-flowered plants' rhizomes last year while repotting?' No, surely not.
But I am keen enough that, every now and then, just for a few nano-seconds of self-doubt, I allow these thoughts a subversive whisper in my ear. That's all history now. Last year I had to repot my Louisiana irises, as they had multiplied so much they had totally outgrown their pot. In fact, I had to set up a second, smaller water garden pot to cope with the overload. Even then I still had to toss out some excess rhizomes, simply because I had so many. These things are really vigorous growers, but I must admit it's a nice problem to have.
Louisiana iris flowers telegraph the colours to come a few
days in advance.
It's hard to be there for the actual moment the flowers open,
but these guys are sooo close.
Then, next thing you know, they're open and if you could
talk to them they'd say they've been open for ages. Where were you?
Of course the thing that makes my white irises so special to
me is the green bits. A totally all-white iris with no green stripey bits would be a pale imitation of the real thing.
The whole glorious flower show will all be over two weeks from now. That'll be it for another year, but the wait for Good-o has been worth it yet again.
However, when you factor in the two weeks of glorious blue irises prior to the white ones, it's a month-long, very delightful way to announce to everyone that spring is well and truly here.
