Thursday 7 May 2009

Irises - Les Iris

Bearded Irises are one of the glories of Loire gardens in May. No wonder the most famous iris breeder of them all, Cayeux, is based in the Loire.

A gorgeous, almost black specimen from Coulon
in the Marais Vert near Niort.


A pretty lavender and white pair.

Rich cream and lavender, and an unusually
broad profile, at Giverny.


Everyone has these pale lavender irises,
but they are no less pretty for that.
These particular examples are opposite the Château in Preuilly.


At the Australian War Memorial near Villers-Bretonneux
the irises have fancy variegated leaves.

Susan

3 comments:

chm said...

Irises are definitely my favorite flowers. They are beautiful and their delicate smell is delicious.

I wonder if the almost black ones in the first photo are those we call "Le deuil de Louis XVI".

Nice pictures as usual.

Good luck with the move, five more days and counting, isn't it?

The Beaver said...

Thank you Susan for the Cayeux link

I have a couple of "Superstition" but I did not know that "midnight oil" is the darkest. May have to get a couple of them :-) . There is a good description of the different black variations here:
http://www.iris-cayeux.com/catalogueCriteres.php?lg=FR

Susan said...

I don't know what the very dark ones are called, but they are clearly very popular. And no wonder, they are really striking. The Cayeux nursery is pretty high on my list of places to visit once I can be doing some serious gardening in Preuilly.

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