The Fleeting Life of a Melville Iris
Flowers bloom easily and frequently in Joburg. But they don’t always bloom for long.
The blooms on wild irises, also known as Dietes grandiflora, open gloriously for one day. The next day the blossom is shriveling, and the day after that it’s completely gone.
We have several large clumps of wild irises in our back garden and yesterday they all bloomed at once. I had my camera ready.
Yesterday, every blossom was perfect. This morning, true to form, they were all in their death throes.
RIP, Dietes grandiflora. You lived every day as if it were your last. I look forward to meeting your children next year.
Stunning, Heather! Simply stunning! Kathy
beautiful!!
Very Pretty!
Thanks everyone!
These flowers are a favourite for me to shoot!! They’ve got an angelic look!! :) **
Yes, I love them too. I wish they would hang around a little longer! Luckily there are lots of them around here and they seem to bloom at different times.
Love that iris - they are so beautiful in big bunches.
Ah beautiful! Since the beginning of spring, I’ve been wandering around in our neighbourhood taking photos of the beautiful flowers in the neighbourhood gardens. People sometimes stop to ask what I’m doing and can’t believe that I’m “just photographing flowers”!
Your images show them even prettier than I remember them!
Thank you :)
I liked second and third pic.
Ah I love these flowers - I didn’t know they only bloomed for one day - amazing!
I know, amazing, huh? You figure that out as soon as you pick one and put it in a vase. Dead the next morning.
I love these too, and your pics are great. The good news is they keep blooming all summer, like daylilies. So even though they only bloom for one day, there is always another one blooming the next…
Yes, I’m hoping for another round soon!
Gorgeous photo!
oooh beautiful photography, as always!
Heather, I’m now wondering… are there different kinds of wild iris, or is this just a regular iris, not a wild one? I’ve got wild irises that look more yellowish in color and have a black dot in the middle (I have a pic on my gardening post at http://joburgexpat.blogspot.com/2011/09/gardening-in-south-africa.html but they are not as nice as yours), and these are the ones I meant when I said they bloom again and again in my yard (unless the gardening service decides to cut them all off again just before blooming). I’ve also got your kind of iris, but no one’s ever told me what it is called, so I’m not sure.
I’m sure there are different kinds of wild iris, but this kind does bloom over and over though. We have some more blooming right now.