On the first day of May, the Italian landscape is dotted with patches of wild flowers and poppies are just starting to make their presence felt. But at my house, iris are in abundance at this time of year.
Iris Are in Abundance
What are Iris?
There are 260-300 different varieties of iris. They are showy flowers on tall stems and very striking. You can see from my picture of my own bearded iris, they are very showy flowers. My grandmother (Nanna) used to call iris ‘flags’ but that is a name given to some species but not all. Iris is the common name used across the entire species though they are also known as irises.
Iris are perennial plants, that is to say they come back each year. In my garden they grow from rhizomes, as they were given to me as offshoots of existing plants. Otherwise you can grow them from bulbs.
Iris Are Easy To Grow
I find my bearded iris grow perfectly well on my shallow soil and rocky ground. They are also incredibly easy to propagate. I have gone from a small number of original plants to large ‘hedgerows’ glowing with iris. Hence me saying that the iris are in abundance. They are making a wonderful show of seas of blue edging my garden, woodland, and putting some color into shady spots under trees.
I swapped some rhizomes with another gardener and hope to have to some yellow iris appear soon. I also bought two pots of overgrown iris at a garden center. They were amazed I wanted them as they looked ugly. But I got 12 iris out of each. One is a deep purple bearded iris and the other is a gorgeous maroon velvet color with a pink highlight. Barnet Boy also got me some rhizomes from some deep blue iris. I have thought of adding even more colored varieties – apparently there are over 30,000 cultivars of bearded iris alone!
Is there a connection with the Greek Goddess Iris?
I talked about the Greek Goddess Iris in an earlier blog and it is a lovely story. She was the goddess of the rainbow and a messenger, running errands for the gods if you like. She was of the sea and of the sky; her father was a marine god and her mother a goddess of the clouds. So the rainbow was the bridge between cloud and sea. They believed that Iris was replenishing the rain clouds with water from the sea.
Wikipedia lists her namesakes as being an asteroid, the element iridium, the hormone Irisin and of course the iris plant.
Giardino dell’Iris (Iris Garden)
I have never visited the Giardino dell’Iris in Florence but I understand the show is breathtaking. It is only open in spring when the iris are in bloom. It contains 15,000 species of iris including some that are at risk of extinction. Maybe one year I might actually make it there and that may inspire me to introduce some new ones to my garden!
Before you go
My name is Dorothy Berry-Lound an artist and writer. You can find out more about my art and writing at https://dorothyberryloundart.com.
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Thank you for reading!
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