Dutch Iris ‘Eye of the Tiger’

A few years ago I planted a few of these Dutch irises called ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ in the front of our house, along the sidewalk. Dutch irises are actually hybrids of the Spanish iris (Iris xiphium) and the Morocco iris (Iris tingitana) but are often called Iris x hollandica. I think they’re awesome.

Champneys’ Pink Cluster

Roses are about to appear in force. The rugosa in the back yard is blooming but I haven’t gotten a good picture of it yet. This is ‘Champneys’ Pink Cluster’, a Noisette bred by Champneys (U.S.A.) in 1811. It is growing on the south end of our house and is a very upright plant. I have it tied to the trellis that Keven helped me put up two years ago. It’s the smaller of the two roses there. The other completely covers the 10 by 12 foot trellis and hangs off of both sides. That’s starting to bloom, as well and I’ll try to get a good picture of that soon.

Zéphirine Drouhin and Clematis

It’s a bit early for roses to be blooming but it’s been that sort of a spring. I have a couple roses that have flowers up against the house. One rose, ‘Roseraie De l’Hay’ is about to start blooming. Ralph, on the other hand has quite a few already out in his back yard.

Back about ten years ago (I don’t remember precisely) he asked me what roses he should plant and I gave him a list of six or seven to choose from. Instead of choosing, though, he planted them all. They are mostly doing very well and a couple are quite huge. This one is ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ and it’s a very nice Bourbon rose bred by Bizot in France in 1868. If you are looking for a good, reliable rose with an amazing, damask fragrance, this may be the rose for you. It does suffer pretty badly from blackspot and will be mostly leafless by the end of the summer but it grows so vigorously that it doesn’t seem to do any lasting harm.

The roses are the cerise-pink flowers whilte the white flowers are clematis, which is a very good companion to roses.

I went for a short walk in the neighborhood when I got home today. I walked around two blocks and stopped to take pictures a few times, mostly of flowers and in all cases of colors. Here’s a selection. The irises were all in Mark and Kathy’s yard. Mark invited me to the back when I told him what I was looking for. The clematis were growing on mail box and lamp post, respectively. I also took some of rhododendron flowers but I wasn’t happy with them so I left them out, although that would have added a bright red to the collection.

Aquilegia ‘Biedermeier’

As you can see from the flower in the background, this particular flower has faded a bit from the bright blue-purple it was. I still think it’s a wonderful shape and pattern, though.

Clematis ‘Mrs. George Jackman’

Whether you call them KLE-mə-təs prefer kli-MA-təs, they have beautiful flowers. This is Clematis ‘Mrs. George Jackman’ and we planted it last week so it can grow up into a large rose on the back fence. It’s only a foot and a half tall and is covered with big white flowers. I’m looking forward to a few years from now, when it’s really established. Should be nice, especially with the million little pink rose flowers that should come out before the clematis is done.

Dandelion Seeds

Like most people trying to grow a lawn, I’m not crazy about dandelions. They are pretty tough to get rid of completely and they will grow in almost any soil conditions. As much as I hate them in my lawn, I am actually kind of fond of the seed heads, at least from a photographic angle.

I was sitting on the lawn at church with Gwendolyn watching the other kids playing soccer with a big rubber ball and I took this picture of a dandelion seed head that was growing where we happened to sit.

Chives

I don’t have a lot to say about this picture. It’s chive flowers opening up. They are growing in a crack in our patio and self seeded from chives I grown in a container and use for cooking. My favorite thing to do with chives is to tear up the flowers and sprinkle them on soup or steak or whatever. Purple food!