Bearded iris

Up till last year there was a single, huge clump of irises in the front garden - it hadn't been touched in all the years we'd lived here, and probably not for some time before that. The rhizomes had spread in all directions and formed a solid slab, so that it almost looked as though that whole piece of border had been cobbled over. The clump didn't produce many flowers, and those that did appear were a rather washed-out blue.

Last summer sorting out the Iris Situation finally reached the top of my to-do list, and we spent most of a weekend taking up the clump and dividing it. CH did the heavy digging - and it was heavy as there was almost no way of breaking into the slab of rhizomes before they were off the soil, so he had to work round and round the outer edge, levering it from the ground bit by bit. Then I broke up the clump, throwing away the old, unproductive rhizomes from the centre and replanting the younger ones in groups of three around the garden.

Before undertaking all of this I'd read up on the best way to achieve good results, on line as well as in my gardening books, and had watched several YouTube tutorials - in one of which a professional iris grower stated that you shouldn't expect flowers from your replanted irises in the first year after splitting, because it might well take them a full year to settle back in. Luckily however, either my irises don't watch YouTube or they're as contra-suggestive as the rest of the household, because I'm happy to report that they're now bursting into flower all over the garden. And what's more, the faded blue is gone, and they're all this deep, rich purple.

I had been planning to do a macro shot today, for Walking Wombat's lovely challenge May Macro Mayhem, but when I arrived home from work and saw this iris bathed in raindrops I couldn't resist a wider shot showing the whole flower. The extra image is a closer view.