From the Garden: Purple Irises

We have a few types of flowers  that grow in the yard on our property and I wait anxiously for each any every bloom, like a kid awaiting a trip to the candy store.  For me, nothing beats using fresh cut flowers or branches from my own garden throughout the house - its heaven (and they're free!!!).    The first to bloom were the daffodils and I enjoyed a few weeks of that vibrant bright yellow scattered around the house.   But next will be the tall regal looking Irises,,,,we have two huge patches and they look like they're about to bloom any day now.  They usually burst open just slightly ahead of our peonies.....my absolute favorite!  

What I love about the Irises is the colour, I'm really not a fan of purple when it comes to paint or fabrics or carpet but when I'm selecting fresh flowers for a room, second to white flowers purple is my next favorite, especially rich deep purples.  Purple blooms work so beautifully with browns and greys especially, and in light neutral spaces the purple not only adds a dark contrast but its also a less feminine hit of colour than pink so I like that its gender neutral burst of colour.

The above photos are pics I took of our Irises last year just as they bloomed and the timing couldn't have been better.  On June 3rd I was hosting a 25th wedding anniversary for my eldest brother and of course, I had to find an inexpensive way to deck the venue out with fresh flowers without breaking the budget - so I brought bundles of these fresh cut Irises and placed them in tall glass vases along the bar and in a few niches in the old brick walls.   They looked stunning, the effect was so dramatic.  Unfortunately I was so busy hosting that I didn't take many photos, but here's a couple that I found that show a glimpse of some of the flowers.  You can see a couple of the Iris arrangements on top of the bar along with some palm leaves......

For the tables, I had purchased a couple dozen cream coloured gerber daisies, they were in keeping with the theme of the invites which also had daisies on them but mainly I wanted to do a single bloom arrangement because I could do multiples of them for high impact and it wouldn't cost a fortune!  Here's where I had to get creative in an instant, when I called the restaurant earlier that day to see if they had bud vases I was told that they didn't - aaaggghhh.  I didn't have time to go and buy 20 vases so I asked them if they could set aside some empty bottles for me.  But when I arrived at the venue the recycling bins had been emptied earlier that day so there wasn't a lot of to chose from.  I managed to find 20 Perrier bottles (actually,,,,we only found 16 so we had to drink 4!) and then I added a gerber daisy and sprig of tall grass to each one and placed one bottle on every table.  This took about 10-15 minutes to do and it really gave the space a joyous summery feel, in fact, the staff all said they liked it so much they were going to start doing that for future bookings.  

A word of caution about brining these large variety Irises indoors though, if you do - be careful to keep an eye on them, remove them as soon as they start to wilt - once they start to expire the droppings from the flowers are like ink and will stain any surface they fall upon.    When I bring them inside my house, I place them in really tall cylindrical vases so they're completely encased in glass, this way anything that falls off stays in the vase.  Otherwise if using them for a table setting for a special occassion remember to remove them after the party!  Or,,,,for that hit of purple try other varieties like tulips or hydrangeas....

Its a cool an overcast rainy day today so I'm procrastinating the trip to the garden centre,,,,,I was hoping that the photos of last years flowers would inspire me to get out of the house and go get all the plantings I need to fill up my planters.   But its not working yet........I need sunshine.