Laughing Ravens

'Mardi Gras Mambo' ( Joseph Musacchia , R. 2013) Seedling 08-10-01. LA, 36 (91 cm), Early to midseason bloom. Dark purple self; orange-gold spear signal; slight recurve. 'Red Velvet Elvis' X 'Hush Money' . Purple in the garden isnt hard to come by. Sometimes it leans towards red, other times more towards blue. Purple, when rich and pure, can become almost black in its purple-ness. In the garden setting, against green sword-like leaves, the purple of the Louisiana iris 'Mardi Gras Mambo' can almost appear like ink, until the bright yellow signal in the throat pops right out. That contrast in color   Perennial lupine  When set against the wine pink flowers of the weigela behind it, the perennial lupine's purple comes through as a soft purple. The bi-color of the pea flowers keeps it interesting! I have spent so many late afternoons in the early summer, trying to capture macro photographs of lupine flowers. The many shades of purple is simply enchan...

 This post is meant to be a quick stab at the topic of starting iris seeds. On the surface, this should be straight forward. Stick seeds in dirt, watch them come up, poof! Irises. My first experiments with growing irises from seed started with Siberian iris, 'Caesar's Brother' which had plentiful seeds the year before.   And the truth of the matter is that it is a little bit more complex than that... but not that terribly difficult. The first question is where does one get iris seeds? What sort of iris seeds are you wanting to try to grow? Do you have enough room to grow a lot of plants or just a few? Wait, I thought I said this was going to be simple. Okay, the simplest place to get iris seeds is from your own irises. If bees have pollinated your plants, you'll see lovely swollen seed pods where the flowers used to be. Let those seed pods dry until just before they crack open. Then harvest them (with notes about what the name of the variety you gathered them from [this...