One of the lovely purple bearded irises.

The purple irises against the side of the house.

I love irises. There’s something about them that I find jaunty, and jauntiness is a quality I value highly in a flower. Also, they grow by the sides of ponds and lakes and in swamps, so I enjoy them as I enjoy everything else about water ecosystems. In my garden, I now have three species: German bearded (tall purple and yellow, shorter white, and some mystery varieties that haven’t bloomed yet); Siberian (only acquired last spring, so not yet blooming); and some shorter native ones (larger taller blue and shorter smaller white). I purchased the natives, but the others were gifts from neighbors. This spring I’ll be moving the shorter white irises into a new spot at the corner of the front bed, which will hopefully give more room for the taller ones to propagate. Eventually, I’d like to have several areas bursting with color-coordinated irises, and (as with most things in my garden) that requires patience and organization in the absence of a large monetary outlay. (This is also the plan for the daffodils, by the way: identify them by color, move those that are similar into clumps together and hope that they multiply over the course of several years if left largely alone.)

Of course, the area with the irises is precisely the side of the house that is slated to be dug up, steeply graded, and replanted later this summer. Which will be great opportunity to separate the yellow flowers from the purple ones, assuming I keep track of them adequately in the interim. Look for little bits of plastic tied around stems, that’s the best system I’ve devised so far.

The short native shade irises under the dogwood.