Iris inspiration

Well, talking about irises so much in that earlier post got me thinking about future iris garden plans. And, boy, do I now have plans!

These plans have been particularly stimulated by some photos of irises that I came upon. Isn't Google amazing! I forget how I found this one - I think I googled "a nice lawn makes a garden look better." I am trying to figure out why other gardens look so good and mine looks so....scruffy. I really think it is the lawn, so this year I am going to focus on getting my front and back lawn looking better. This will require lots of manual weeding (I like weeding - makes me feel so zen), and sprinkling fertilizer and lawn seed. I did this with my side lawn in the front, last year. It went from looking like a wasteland to an...acceptable patch of green. That is an improvement!

But back to the flowers! Look at this:

Hot pink and orange and a lush green lawn. Me loves! Don't you think I need a garden like that? Hot pink ruffled Oriental poppies (possibly the beautiful Marlene) and coral ruffled bearded irises (could Cordoba be a good stand in?). In the distance, some purple gorgeous blooms that I can't identify. This fabulous garden was created by Bryan and Cassandra Barrett of Oregon. I found it on the website finegardening.com. 

So that set me dreaming. I think this combination would look amazing in my rose garden - it gets lots of sun, which poppies need. I have tried poppies in a few places in my gardens, but not much luck. The problem is, the place where I want to put these flowers is currently full of Dutch irises....lots of Dutch irises. Should I dig them up and put in poppy roots in late April? That would be so wasteful... Alternately, I could put the poppies in another garden, then move them in Autumn. Maybe...

But nevermind the gardening dilemmas, take a look at my next inspiration! 

Purple flag irises. Many, many of them. 

This photo is from the Veseys.com website. I think this would be an amazing look for one of the garden beds in my backyard. Currently it is rather scruffy (isn't it all), but I do have some Siberian irises there, that bloomed last year. One of them is Butter and Sugar, which came out a paler yellow than in the picture. The other was a pink one...that came out white! Sigh.

Of course it will take a few years, but nice big clumps of pale purple, white, and pale yellow irises in that corner, against a fence, would look so great! It would retain the wild heart of that part of the backyard (very important to me - manicured order is not what I am going for) but satisfy my need for lots of irises.

Another dreamy dream - a multicoloured iris bed! You will recall that, in my last Iris post, I described the many beautiful irises that were given to me. If I do carry out the plans mentioned above, it will mean moving some of the irises currently in those spots. So I think I will make a new bed in a spot that is currently lawn, and put them all there! Just think - dark purple, light purple, yellow, purple and beige...that's enough to make a respectable mixed iris bed!

Okay, maybe it won't look quite like this:

Source: https://schreinersirisgardens.wordpress.com

But with some love, and a bit of time, I think it can become quite beautiful.

Irises are such fun!