A brilliant bonanza of blooms these last two days as we flutter flamboyantly into iris season in the Adirondacks‘ Champlain Valley. After rain, rain, rain we’re celebrating a warm, sunny, and *DRY* preview to summer. Such swings of joy after squelch-squelching around in soggy grass and watching Rosslyn’s beach disappear beneath the waves. Unfortunately the lake’s high water will be with us for a while longer. But Iris Germanica ‘Las Vegas’ have unfurled into festive summer festoonery outside the morning room. And that is more than fair recompense for all the rainy days.
In these first two photographs, the Iris blossoms — just beginning to open, and then fully blossomed — were taken between cloudbursts a few days ago.
Today’s photos (below) are kissed with morning sunshine. Together this gallery captures the drama of a variety that we’ve cultivated in the morning room flowerbed since 2018. An exquisite bloom, and yet I could not remember the name. I tried uploading photographs to search engines. But there are so many hybrids, that it didn’t help narrow things down, particularly well. And then a deep dig into old email confirmations brought me to the order receipt.
Iris germanica ‘Las Vegas’ is play spectacular. This tall bearded iris cultivar exudes refined elegance and delicate complexity with a distinctive ‘Las Vegas’ flourish that combines dusky sepia-mauve standards with heavily ruffled edges, contrasting creamy white falls edged with plum-violet veining and delicate stippling, and an almost startling egg yolk yellow beard at the center of the flower. The stately palette has been described as sun-faded or vintage silk, as that strikes me as accurate.
If you’re a gardening nerd, you may find the cultivar description and hybridization background for Iris germanica ‘Las Vegas’ intriguing.
‘Las Vegas’ (Monty Byers, R. 1988). Seedling# D41-100. TB, 36″ (91 cm), Early midseason to midseason bloom and re-bloom. Standards creamy tan; falls lemon cream with red-violet stitched hafts and edge; brownish gold beard; heavily ruffled. ‘Broadway’ X ‘Earl Of Essex’. Moonshine Gardens 1989. (Source: Irises.org)
In conversation with Teddi this afternoon, we agreed enthusiastically to divide and transplant some of the Iris germanica ‘Las Vegas’ rhizomes in this bed toward the end of the growing season. Already contemplating where they should go…
Iris season is the best time of year! We just finished our bloom season in May.
Totally agree! (Except for all the other best times of the year like poppy season…) We’re still in the early phases of iris season, so each day is more glorious than the last.