A place for Irises

Christie and I live in the house in which my mom grew up.  My grandparents were the first owners of the house and my grandmother lived here until she passed away, about 6 and a half years ago.

My grandmother planted a number of lavender, mixed white and purple & solid white Iris in the front flowerbed.  They have multiplied over the years and there are quite a few of them now.  Christie's grandmother also really likes Irises and had given us some a couple of years ago that we planted in the same front flowerbed.  Whenever my wife and I decided to rework the front flowerbed - removing several bushes and installing the garden waterfall - we chose to relocate most of the Iris.  They were too tall for the flowerbed and did not have the right feel.

Purple and white Iris in front of our garden waterfall.

White Iris and Lavender Iris (background) in our front flowerbed.

Of course, we couldn't just throw them away.  But at the time, we couldn't really find a good place for them.  We dug them up, tossed them in buckets and they sat in the shade under a tree for over a year.  Without soil and sun they were almost dormant.  Thankfully almost all of them survived and a couple of them even bloomed in that state.

Rusty pink Iris given to us by Christie's grandmother.

Royal blue/purple Iris given to us by Christie's grandmother.

On one of our road trips last Spring we visited the log cabin home of Sequoyah, who invented the Cherokee syllabary (cousin to the alphabet).  The grounds of this National Historic Landmark are very well kempt.  My wife was in awe of the rings of Irises around their trees.

Iris planted at Sequoyah's cabin

Finally, we had found inspiration for all of our beautiful Irises!  Christie thought that the Irises would look neat around the base of our Sycamore, but I wasn't sure if they would bloom very well there since they would be in such dense shade all day long.

Lonely light post ready for work.  Pip is scoping out our new Iris garden.

In the middle of our backyard is an old lamp post that was once fueled with natural gas.  The gas has been disconnected, but we would like to have it wired with electricity some day.  We decided that this lamp post would look really nice with Iris planted around it.  In addition to being pleasing to the eye, it will help prevent kids blindly running into the lamp post while playing in the backyard (something I've done before), if there is a bit of a flower bed around it.

Completed Iris bed

What do you think of our dedicated Iris bed?  A couple more Iris pop up in our front flowerbed around the waterfall every year.  As soon as they are finished blooming, I will relocate them to this location in the backyard with the others.