The tall bearded iris, the Siberian iris and the Japanese iris are all blooming now, although today the rain is pushing a lot of the stems down. This year they- like the peonies- are taller than they've ever been before. Some come up my chest! Also, the iris and peonies are both more fragrant than they've ever been before. When I go outside, the air is perfumed; normally I have to walk up to the plants and stick my nose into the flowers!

This is the tall bearded iris 'Gnu'. I love the broken colors; they're like water colors running. This is the only broken color iris I have, although I hope to buy a few more. This one came to me free, because a friend asked me to divide his iris beds. Neither he nor the person he'd bought this from had any idea of the name, but I got lucky and IDed it on the internet.