A cold front moved in today. It was cloudy with intermittent light rain. It was not really good weather to work outside so we decided on a car trip. We headed up to a little place just south of Denton where the owners of an iris farm hold an annual garden tour at their home.
Forget what I said a few days ago about the lack of wildflowers along the road. On this trip we saw lots of bluebonnets and especially primroses along the right of ways. I still think the bluebonnets have not quite hit their peak yet though.
Our destination was Argyle Acres and it turned out that the demonstration gardens were in the front yard of the owner’s log cabin style house. The setting was a Crosstimbers forest on a hillside, lots of small post oaks in a reddish sandy soil with natural underbrush and leaf mulch, and no lawn grass to be seen. Heavily mulched paths connected the iris beds within the woods. It was a completely natural and very simple landscape.
They claimed over 1200 varieties of iris in the gardens. No more than a third were blooming at best, but it was still an overwhelming sight. Of course I had my camera with me and if you are not already sick of seeing iris pictures you are welcome to visit my photo gallery where I posted some of the prettier shots.
With the light rain and the wind Tricia and I were rather chilled by the time we were ready to leave. Plus we were starting to feel hungry. We headed back through downtown Grapevine where we stopped and got lunch at an old favorite that we had not visited for several years.
No, we did not bring any irises back with us, but we did order some to be delivered in the fall.
Comments (5)
Happy Easter Bill and Tricia!!
thanks for stopping by my weblog, bill. And now I can get to see your beautiful pictures. It’s kind of a chilly Easter here today, and I don’t much feel like gardening. So I spent the day reading and went to an AA meeting to meet someone.
I’m still dreaming of Mexico. It was a visual treat for the eyes and soul.’
I really like specialty nurseries. There is a mom-and-pop nursery on the edge of Indy that specializes in hostas and daylilies.
The plants are all grown there, healthy, and reflect a collector’s interest both deep and wide in the number of plants available. Sadly this is their last year to operate.
Thanks for sharing about the iris nursery. What could be more lovely than blooming bearded irises? While short in period of bloom, they break our hearts with their complexity of color and shade, and their fine texture. Definitely worth traveling down the road to find such a paradise.
I have some irises along the side of my house that have been here since I bought the house 10 years ago………They just keep coming up each spring…..I have never done anything with them i.e. dividing them……they are “just there”……..do I need to do anything with them or just let them be?
They are currently budding (I am in St. Louis, Missouri) Am not sure what to call them - they are purple in color when they bloom………
The Sterling Stitch variety looks awfully familiar; I’m wondering if that isn’t the one my mother split and gave me.
What beautiful pictures, Bill!