Friday Fabulous Flower

It was a bit warmer yesterday, back to brisk today, but enough to give a few more of these terribly cute Iris (I. reticulata) a chance to flower.  Their flower is pretty large in comparison to the size of the plants, although the leaves will get longer and taller.  This is a species that would like being in a sunny rock garden, which TPP does not have, but in one bed this bulb-forming Iris has been happy. This is a very cheerful spring flower if you can make it happy.  In 3 or 4 other places in our gardens it has just faded away.  This species has been a FFF before, but not too many other choices right now, and if enjoyable each spring, then no problem featuring it again.

Friday Fabulous Flower - early Iris

A number of people have contacted TPP to  ask the obvious, "Are we having an early spring?"  Yes, and to answer the next question, this is weather, which is variable; it becomes climate when this weather pattern becomes regular and normal. On a world-wide basis we've had a series of some 6 or 7 warmest years on record in a row. The 2016-2017 winter has largely been a no-show here in the upper Midwest. Relatively little snow and not even much rain, so things are pretty dry. This is the 8th year that TTP has kept a record of first flowering dates for the 300 or so perennial flowering plants in our gardens. The other perennials don't flower (gymnosperms, ferns) at all.  Over such a short term the data shows quite a bit of variation year to year, but 2017 is looking very early.  Now once June comes along, things will have evened out.  The witch hazels have always flowered in mid to late Feb. or early March. Last year they flowered on the 17th and 27th of Feb.; this year they flowered on the 12th and 17th, so 5 and 10 days earlier, and they have flowered on the 17th, 18th, and 21st of Feb. before.  Same with the crocus and snowdrops.  The squill started flowering a week earlier than ever before, but the real shocker is today's FFF Iris reticulata. It started flowering on the 26th of Feb., a full 2 weeks earlier than ever before. That's a lot this time of year. TPP featured this Iris a couple of years ago.  It's really only doing well in one place in our gardens where the bulbs have multiplied quite nicely, and this is pretty cheerful early in the spring.  A couple of nights of below freezing temperatures have not done it any damage.

Under planted perennials & Friday Fabulous Flower - Iris reticulata

Why not double our fun by having a FFF and presenting another under planted perennial at the same time?  This will be accomplished by highlighting Iris reticulata, a species of iris that grows like a crocus.  Rather than having a rhizome, this iris has a small bulb/corm; it will form clumps, but not spread like it would with a rhizome.  So far in TPP's experience, this little iris naturalizes very well.  You plant it just like crocus, and it flowers at about the same time of year, early spring.  The long narrow leaves hang around for awhile and then it goes dormant until next spring.  Like many small bulb flowers, planting it in clusters and sprays gives you more impressive displays.  After all it's only about 10-15 cm tall at flowering.  Everyone has room for more flowers like this; they are so showy and so cheerful.  It's also relatively cheap; you can buy 100 bulbs for something like $12.  So why isn't this more commonly planted?  Can't say.  TPP has a couple of very nice images, but they're in the laptop and the home internet connection is down, again, and not to speak ill of the provider by name, but these bumskis can't possibly be the frontier of the communications network (topic of another post perhaps).  This image is from the Creative Commons and credited to Hedwig Storch.

Oh, yes, a reminder!

Maybe the memory isn't what it used to be, because somehow last fall the Phactor made an unplanned purchase of some spring bulbs on sale, and then had Mrs. Phactor yammering on about who (duh!) was going to plant them and where they were to be planted, and so being smallish, they were stuck into the margins of little gardens, here and there, and then promptly forgotten until the shoots popped up this spring.  And do you think there was any memory of what kind of bulb they were, or any notes about where all they had been planted?  Nope.  But the nice thing then is you get a surprise when they flower and you get your answer, which is Iris reticulata, a very cheerful spring flower.  Now the remaining surprise will be to see where all they appear.  Spring, when things lost are found, but a big pair of loppers are still missing.  Gone.