Gotta Have It: Iris bucharica

October 24, 2012 · Filed under bulbs · Tagged Iris bucharica

Perhaps you have a better memory then I do, but I always need a bit of a jog this time of year. In the spring, everyone is posting beautiful and informative articles about spring bulbs. I make note after note (usually on a piece of scrap paper), and when the bulb catalogues come out, and it is time to order, where are they?

Reading Jennifer’s post reminded me about this gorgeous, gorgeous bulb. I had often admired it in the GardenImport catalogue, but there were always other bulbs to purchase, and it fell to the bottom of the list. But, now that I am living in Barbados, and I only get to see my garden spring and fall, sob, I am limiting (really I am) my purchases to plants that flower in those seasons.

So last year Iris bucharica was purchased and this year it flowered. And boy did it. The one drawback I find to a lot of spring bulbs is the shortness of flowering, get a bit of a heat wave, (and we frequently do in Canada) and they can be finished in two days. That is what I enjoyed so much when I was living in London, the temperatures were very consistent, and the bulb show went on and on.

I do not know if the unseasonal temperatures in March threw the flowering schedule all out of whack, but I do know I arrived home to this, on

April 22nd.

April 23rd

April 24th, see how another flower bud is emerging from the leaves,(the stem of the leaf is cleverly pointing to it, you would almost think I had staged it, lol),

May 4th

 look at all the flowers at this point, even the very first one to bloom is still good.

At this point, I began to get really busy in the garden and lots of other plants got my attention, but Iris bucharica was always blooming in the background.  

 It is such a gorgeous plant, they have deeply channelled leaves, which are set alternately on each side of the stem; and the flowers appear individually in the axils of these leaves, and at the top of the stem. Iris bucharica grows up to 16 inches tall, increasing size as it flowers. The stem carries up to seven flowers, each in a leaf axil; these have yellow falls, and  creamy white standards. The one Jennifer saw at Merlin’s Hollow was all white with a touch of yellow, I want that one next. Unfortunately it will probably have to wait until after I move back to Canada, most mail order bulb companies cannot guarantee delivery to me while I am home. But my list for when I am is getting longer and longer.

I went through all the photos I took while I was at Kilbourne Grove, wondering if I had focused my attention back on this iris, so I had a rough idea of when it stopped flowering. I didn’t , but look at this photo taken on May 12th,

  3 weeks after it started flowering. There in the background you can see it, still flowering!

Talk about getting a bang for your buck….

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