Paperwhite
Waxahachie zone 8a

A first bloom of Spring... that's wonderful and exciting after a long Winter. It won't be long and you will have a beautiful sea of purple irises!

Love your paperwhites, too. I had never grown them and DH bought me a pot for Christmas and he forgot to give them to me, lol. This month, he found them in the closet and to my amazement, they are now blooming!

Kudos for posting the first bloom of your Irises. Can't wait to see mine come into bloom! Thanks for the post.

The bud opened this morning.

It's Crimson King, a historic iris registered in 1893!

Iris Albicans, the "old white cemetary iris", found in Syria in the 1600s (if I remember correctly).

It usually follows Crimson King by about 2 weeks;
maybe the mild winter got it all excited!

Did you have to change your name?

I'm sooooo jealous, but my iris are 1st years, so they have catching up to do!

You can click on the Your Houzz button at the top on the far right, then click on Edit. A screen will come up and direction under Profile Information you can type in the name you want to appears in your posts on GardenWeb. That's what I had to do.

Sylvia, was it you that was giving out irises at the Waxahachie swap? I got some, and potted them up when I got home, just put them in the ground yesterday and was thinking of whoever gave them to me. Nothing is blooming yet, but they look great! Thanks again to whoever brought them!

Beautiful. I'll have to remember to plan bulbs this coming fall

Those are just lovely!

I have some hand-me-downs that are very similar to your purple variety. I got them from my mother. and I think I ID'd them as an old variety (she got hers 30 or so years ago from a lady who got them from her grandmother 30 years before that, etc. etc. It was a ladies name, but I don't remember what. They don't usually bloom until around Easter.

It may or may not have been you that gave me the irises, but I think the lady said they were purple. LOL! Anyway, I don't expect blooms this year, but probably next year they'll put on a show. I also planted some tall crimuns behind them, so it may be a year or two before anything blooms, but I'm patient.

Texasgin, you can plant them now, or just about any time. The bare rhizomes are for sale at Lowes, etc. now.

Oh Sylvia, I meant to ask, do your paperwhites come back, or do you replant every year? I just love the fragrance!

ooh, raven, I looove your irises!

Yes, the paperwhites return year after year!

I did have some irises at one of the swaps that I only knew as "purple';

they came from a woman who had moved here from Houston.

Her previous experience with plants was orchids.

so she treated her irises like she treated the orchids, fussed over them, fertilized them, etc.

& they took over the whole world at her house!

I wish mine would take over my whole yard! I just love them. I had nothing here when I moved to this house in Houston from my Plano house, which had lots of flowers and plants.

A wonderful lady from the gw forums wanted to thank me for helping her with her computer problems and sent me a box of several incredibly beautiful iris and daylilly bulbs. Thanks to her generosity I now have those beauties blooming in my garden, and more.

I still don't have much but I have been adding more each year. A few neighbors and members of our garden club have also shared from their garden.

Our garden club has a yard sale each year around Easter, we sell plants, home baked goods, and this year we have been making lots of beautiful crafts to sell. We donate the majority of the money to very worthy charities, and use a little to take bus trips to garden centers and places of interest.

Great fun! And slowly my garden is growing, this Texas heat is not helping.