A Week of Flowers – Day #5

Sundays are busy days for me, so I missed posting on day 3. Then, I forgot to hit “publish” on Day #4, but once again joining Cathy at Words and Herbs for Day #5 of her annual ‘A Week of Flowers’ meme. It’s trying to snow again today. Not much on the ground–just enough to outline the branches of trees, brighten up the rooftops, and spread a smidge of snowy white frosting on faded flowers. Pretty, but I’m glad for the opportunity to splash a little summery garden color onto my December blog posts.

Let me introduce you to a few members of the iris family which happen to inhabit my flowerbeds. First to arrive each spring is a sweet little front-row charmer, Iris pumila ‘Blue Denim.’ Since it’s such an early bloomer, it is a lovely planting companion to Muscari armeniacum, commonly known as grape hyacinth.

I’ve long since forgotten the name of this iris, but call it ‘Beth’s Favorite,’ as it is a favorite of my daughter Beth’s. It garners quite a few ‘oohs and aahs’ as neighbors stroll through the gardens. There is not a more perfect purple and lavender combination in the world. I absolutely love it when the iris and peonies decide to strut their stuff together. In the background of the photo below you’ll see white peonies that I transplanted from dad’s garden two decades ago.

She was the mom of a few of my friends, so I knew her as “Mrs. Widder,” but she was my mom’s peer and friend, so mom called her Nancy. Nancy Widder was known as a gardener extraordinaire who loved to share plants from her own garden. In fact, she had a flowerbed set aside for that purpose–you can read about her friendship garden here in a touching blog post written by her daughter Wendy in memory of her mom. Though I never visited Nancy’s friendship garden in person, I have a lovely red iris which she shared with my mother. Only the Lord knows how many gardens are graced by one of Nancy’s red irises.

“The earth laughs in flowers.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Iris ‘Honky Tonk Blues’ is one of my long-time favorites. It’s a ruffly blue-violet beauty that has been gracing my garden for well over a decade now. I only wish I had the foresight to move pieces of it around to various locations in the yard, as I’m afraid I have lost this one due to an inadvertent overwatering situation. Time will tell next spring.

Iris ‘Honky Tonk Blues’

One last photo for today.

This lovely Japanese iris will sometimes grace my garden with an encore performance later in the season. If I could paint, I would definitely paint this.