irises | Thoughts, Experiences and Lessons

So this morning, I woke to my normal routine of checking out the status of my flowers. Although, I had cake for breakfast I figure everyone has one day a year they are able to get away with eating cake for breakfast and today is mine. This is a family favorite. My dads mom got this recipe from June Koelsch, so we still to this day call it June Koelsch chocolate cake.

I know I”m about 5 months late on this resolution but I did my first drawing yesterday, she still needs some work. I woke up and did another. I am out of practice. Only 363 more to go for the year. I’ve been as bad about my yoga. I have faith in myself that I’ll step it up and get to working out. I’ve really been eating better, with the new job I haven’t had as much time to cook. I have been trying all sorts of new foods at work though and can tell my palate is changing. I actually like fish and blue cheese. Tomatoes are still out though.

i’ve been obsessed with my yard this year. I’ve had the time, since I haven’t had to worry about homework and school. I think I’ve got the best handle on it to date. More grass is growing, I know I’ll need to overseed this fall, and spray for weeds in a few weeks.

My irises, are growing like crazy. The cul-de-sac looks nice, I hope to add some day lilies and tulips to it this fall so that next year there are flowers for 3 different seasons, maybe even mums if it works out.

These are all seed pods I collected from my irises. Some I snapped off some just pulled right out. Now I’m not expert, and have no idea if these are actually fertilized. I’ve seen much larger pods, my theory is some pods are larger because more production went into them and are more viable but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these grow, so I’ll give it a shot. I haven’t counted them but I will, and see how many produce a plant. I’ll have to find a designated area for them, or plant them inside to start. I read you need to chill them for the winter in your fridge if you plan to start them from pots. I haven’t decided what I’ll do yet.

These are baby irises below.

I accidentally pulled them as I was pulling grass from some of my irises. I wonder if they will be purple and yellow or some sort of hybrid.

I am excited to try my hand at hybridizing my irises.

These are irises I thinned from a vacant house across from mine. And some of my tiger lilies. They really thickened out and the vacant house actually has irises this year. They over crowded. These ones took off and I’ll have to thin them and rearrange them, I wasn’t sure how they’d do as they were growing on cement before.

Still working on the grass above. This is probably the worst area. The stones need weeded, and leveled a bit more but thats a big project so I’ll need a weekend and help.

My vines, I believe there is sweet pea and honey suckle and one other vine. They attract humming birds I’ve seen a few in the last few year and hadn’t ever seen on in my life before living here. They are stunning, a picture I think would be impossible.

Below are my tiger lilies or asiatic lilies. My roses are producing the most buds I’ve ever had, and they all started from the bottom this year. I bet that means all my flowers will be small this year, hopefully that means bigger plants and flowers next year.

When I moved in i had tons of what looked like an iris but no flowers. They had recently planted a coupe of peach trees. I moved some of these plants to my front flower bed hoping I could get them to bloom a couple of years ago. The rhizomes were popping out of the ground before, I think now I’ll have to move all of them from the back yard in the shade of the peach tree to some where sunnier. They are an iris but I don’t know which variety.

A couple of more new colors this year. I need to fill in some holes where someone ran over my flower bed at the end of the cul-de-sac. 😦 I’m getting so many flowers and so little places to plant them now. This fall I plan to overhaul the placement of all my flowers. So i have something blooming at all times in each bed.