To My Wife's Late Father

When my wife's father died we took some of these flowering plants from his garden and planted them in ours. We spread them around and not all of them survived. But we still have a clump at the front of the house which gets the benefit of the most sun.

Iris Stylosa is a winter flowering perennial that makes a very welcome appearance from November onwards.

I was going to photograph this specimen in situ but I found it covered in snow and I had to bring it into the house and carefully revive it. In a way this is fitting because my father-in-law used to pull the blooms as soon as they showed so that others would follow. Not only that, he used to keep a little notebook ready year-by-year and record the number of blooms picked.

So in memory of him and as thanks for such a welcome splash of colour I give you Iris Stylosa!