Laughing Ravens

The bees are sleeping late,      curled up in the dahlia blossoms. The blue jays are acting out scenes from West Side Story. The frogs in the pond are silent now,      except at dusk when they ask to be tossed a few jumping worms. The hummingbird has taken flight after weeks of checking with us to see if it was time to go. It's 9am and there are no sounds from the garden      but the dripping of morning dew on the leathery leaves.  I have started the process of reorganizing the iris beds. When I started this crazy thing three years ago, we were just going to grow Siberian irises. The thinking was that the lowest part of the yard (that floods) would be great for them since they want an abundance of water. Turns out that line of thinking is flawed. (insert embarrassed laughter here). It floods during the winter and develops an ice sheet. That isnt what Siberian irises want during the winter. Lost quite a few Iris sanguinea to this flawed ...

  'Cascade Crest' ( J. Terry Aitken , R. 1988)  - still unfurling 'Crested Surf' ( Bob Bauer and John Coble , R. 2000) I really thought my irises were done. Nope. Turns out that the ensatas were very quiet about sending up their bloom stalks until they were absolutely sure no one was watching, and then BOOOM! In the last few days, there have been so many different ensatas opening up or getting ready to open... it is just incredible. There are at least a half dozen waiting in the wings. I guess July really is the month for iris ensata!  

  'Pelican Island' ( Joseph Musacchia , R. 2019)  Not quite the end of Louisiana iris season... but I dont expect many more to open this week. Things have shifted over to the pseudatas and the ensatas. Even the pseudocorus have passed their prime. That's unfortunate this year, because I was hoping to make a few more crosses between the ensatas and Gubijin... but I think the last Gubijin flower might open tomorrow. We'll see.    'Furui Shiro' ( Carol S. Warner , R. 2016) SPEC-X  'Furui Shiro' is one of the tallest pseudatas in the garden. The flowers are easily the largest. Pseudatas are touted as a sterile cross between an ensata (Japanese) iris and a pseudocorus (invasive yellow flag). Leto and I have been checking for pollen on each opening variety of pseudata, just to test this sterility. Sure enough, none of them have pollen in the stamens. In fact, most of the stamens are tiny, misshapen things. It did however make me wonder about the stigma. Hard...