Irisquestion from Sweden


From: ohrstrom@algonet.se (henrik ohrstrom)



Hello over there!

I am an amateurgardener outside Stockholm, Sweden.
Despite hard winters,short, chilly and rainy summers and hordes of voracious 
roedeers and hares it sometimes happens that some plants survive until 
flowering. Shortly after that they usually die in the first frostnight in 
september.
Gardening is sisyfoswork but oh, so fun!

I dont know much about irises but I like them very much. The most beautiful 
flower in my garden is a small iris but I do not know its name, can anyone 
help me?

It has creeping stems, about as thick as a littlefinger, and long roots down 
in the sand or gravel where it prefers to grow. (That means, where it has 
survived)

The leaves come up flat and tight together and have the shape of swords and 
are about 30 cm high.
The flowerstalk is usually shorter than the leaves, 20 to 30 cm only.

The flower is big and the colour is the most wonderful dark violet you can 
imagine! Unfortunately, the beauty is shortlived, the flower lasts only one 
day, rarely two, and a new bud opens next morning. The flowering occurs in 
late may - early june and usually lasts not more than two weeks. A 
squaremeter of this big, violet flowers is an marvellous but rare sight in 
the garden.

This summer has been abnormally cold and wet with rain almost every day so I 
began getting anxious that my precious iris would rot away but to my 
surprise it has continued to pop up flowers, not as many as in june, only 
one every third day or so but still! Maybe I have misjudged its need of water.

My family has had this little iris in different gardens for about 35 years 
ever since my mother found it on a stonewall at a farm in the county 
"Ostergotland" here in Sweden. The farmer did not know where it came from 
and he was not interested either.

For many years I have vaguely wondered if it had a name but at last I got a 
bright idea, search on the "Net"!
Nowadays you can find societies for almost anything on "The Net", so why not 
an Iris Society? And there it was! I could never have imagined there were so 
many irises and irislovers in the world! My knowledge about these flowers 
increased considerably in only a couple of hours! Thank you very much for 
about 300 (the number is rapidly increasing)  interesting irisletters!

But, going back to my initial question, can anyone tell me the name of my 
iris? Please?
Maj Ohrstrom, Sweden.


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