Photograph © Chris Johnson
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Gardening in a Gale
Croft Garden 
She seems to be an elegant lady whether wearing her iris or her snowdrop costume – does she have any more, I wonder?
Lovely Iris, Christine. 2 questions for you. How do you keep slugs off them? Or have they all been blown into the sea? And secondly, do you know who LBS was, since we have a snowdrop named after her…?
Best wishes
Julian
Such a beautiful lady! And not, it would seem, a pampered hot house flower. Down here in Australia she and her kin are in their gray, lumpy period.
Cheers, Marcus
I’m sure she was far too refined to be common place.
I can’t grow dwarf iris outside – they flower too early and get shredded by the wind. They mainly grow in pots and are taken into the greenhouse as soon as I see the flower buds appear. After feeding they are put in a sheltered spot, and when the foliage dies down they are repotted and baked in the sun (in a cold frame) and then put in a sheltered spot in the autumn to be watered by the rain. Lady BS is one of the fortunate ones and grows in our lean-too garden, about which I will write about soon.
There is a nice post on Lady BS (http://frustratedgardener.com/2015/03/07/portrait-of-a-lady-iris-histrioides-lady-beatrix-stanley/). One of the lost tribe of great English lady gardeners, part of a distant age when the Empire ruled!
Like her name sake, this one is extremely hardy. She is only grown under-cover to protect the flowers from the winter storms. Always a delight and no trouble at all – although the leaves are very attractive to aphids, but this seems to be a problem with so many iris.
Thanks for that C, it’s really interesting _ I shall follow your link now,
BW
Julian
What a beautiful shade of blue! I keep wandering around the garden of a morning, hoping my reticulatas have decided they can grow in the desert (and bloom). If so, I might need to extend the iris collection 😉 Your LBS is just lovely!
I do so love all these little jewel like irises. A lovely photo.
wonderful photo
Me too, the delicate tracety of the patterns on the fall paetals is exquisite. Accolades for the photo go yo Himself
Credit for the photograph to Himself. His version was far superior to mine which is rather more soft focus!
Hello, sorry I’ve just found you imprisoned in the spam. We obviously both garden at the extremes, but it is interesting to see what you can grow in difficult conditions. Many of the iris grow in fairly harsh conditions in Iran and Turkey and you’d probably have no trouble giving them a hot dry summer. So I wish you well and hope to see some more of your flowering bulbs.
Thanks so much for rescuing my comment; I disappear much too often on WP blogs these days, and usually without much chance of reemerging!
I do find myself encouraged by watching other gardeners dealing with other extreme climates and certainly hope to see more of your garden!
Your are very welcome and please feel free to join in the chat.