It’s still a week and a half until it is really spring, but it is starting to feel that way around here already. Austin gardeners have been talking blooms for awhile and this week they are starting to show up here. My wisterias were harmed a bit by the last freeze but they still are about to put on a big show. Redbuds and dogwoods are visible everywhere around town.
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When irises bloom for me it is early summer, not spring. Mud season is now, when you wait and wait and wait for the snowdrops to bloom. (It might be today, actually.) Then the crocuses follow. When the daffodils and forsythia bloom, then I concede it is spring, even though we might still get a flurry or two.
Daffodils began blooming here about two weeks ago. I was too distracted by other things to get a picture.
Only the white irises are blooming now. It is my experience that they are the first irises to bloom. My grandmother called them “flags.”
Our plum trees are blooming and the daffs are up but it is COLD here. I hope it doesnt freeze the wisteria buds off. The irises are only up about 6 inches. But MAN you oughta see the grass grow!
In Austin, my white flags started blooming this week too. But in neighborhood they’ve been blooming since mid-January which is usual around here. I think mine are Iris albicans, but mine are always later (and shorter) than others.
Scott Ogden in Garden Bulbs for the South says that Iris albicans are the flags. But that they are easily confused with I. florentina from which orris is made.
I don’t know for certain which one I have, but since mine bloom later maybe it’s the I. florentina.
I’m with Kathy, our siberian iris won’t bloom until late May, if I am remembering correctly. And the bearded come in later than that.
Our saucer magnolia is purty, too! I thought the last hard freeze got all the blooms, but it bloomed a second time!
My white iris look just like those! They were a passalong plant so I had no name but I like that name ‘flags’- might keep that one. The ones in full sun started blooming Feb 22 and their last buds were open yesterday. Another clump in a shadier area is just putting up stalks. They are very plain compared to the hybrids but I love their simplicity.
Back in northern Illinois I would expect the dwarf bearded iris to bloom at the end of April, the tall bearded in mid-May and the Siberian at the end of the month.
Annie in Austin/Glinda from the divasofthedirt