Glamorous garden flowers – The Iris

Irises are a great favourite not least with some of the world’s most famous artists. Vincent van Gogh painted several ‘Iris’ pictures depicting clumps of bearded irises.

Irises – Vincent van Gogh. 1889. Oil on canvas. 93 x 71 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA, US

Then, of course, there was Monet’s garden where irises had been planted en masse.

Le jardin de l’artiste à Giverny. Claude Monet. 1900. Oil on canvas. H81.6cm x L. 92.6cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.

And, it’s not just Western artists that have been inspired by the iris. The iris’s complex, sculptural form has been exquisitely represented in Japanese Edo Period woodblock images.

Grasshopper and Iris. Katsushika Hokusai. Late 1820s. Woodblock print, ink and paper. H 24.8 x L 36 cm Metropolitan Museum, New York, US.

I recently cleared all my father’s tulip display and noticed the irises were just about to bloom, unfortunately he couldn’t see them from the house. It feels sacrilegious to cut them in their prime, but better to appreciate them fleetingly indoors than not at all.

If bearded irises are cut with full buds they will then open over two or three days.

And, I thought these particular colours as well as the irises’ luscious form combined well to make a design that I could possibly develop further sometime in the future for some silk scarves.

Or perhaps this less muted more fresh combination.

Past, present, future – the first weekend of June 2015

Recently, we might have experienced unseasonably cool weather across East Anglia, but there’s still been plenty of blooming flowers in the garden to brighten the first weekend of June.

Some of the irises, aquilegias and early summer roses are in full glory.

A few stragglers from May are graciously fading away.

But, wait a minute, there’s all this potential just about to burst forth!

June in an English country garden (well, actually a suburban back garden with cottage style planting) can be a quietly charming moment – weather permitting!