The Second flower of 2019

"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer someone else up"

Mark Twain

Iris unguicularis 'Walter Butt' Blooming January 17th. 

Well this bright spot in a local garden certainly brought some winter cheer to an otherwise blustery and chilly week. The Algerian Iris certainly doesn't disappoint from a bloom time period. Bursting into flower in Mid January, it certainly seems out of place among the fits of rain and squalls. I imagine if you were a slug or snail trying to make it through the bleakness of winter it must be like a thanksgiving table has been set out before you when this one blooms. I have yet to find a bloom untouched by the mollusks teeth. Whilst we are on that subject, did you know snails can have up to 2,600 plus teeth? Random fact.

So who was Walter Butt? Well he was a retired Bacteriologist and Chemist who obviously had a keen eye for plants, and among other things, we was a founding member of the RHS Joint Rock Garden Committee which sprung to life in 1936. Walter Butt gardened in Sommerset UK and passed away in 1953 leaving us with this wonderful winter blooming selection of the Algerian Iris

Perhaps everyone interested in integrated pest management should grow this as sacrificial slug bait, because every mollusk is guaranteed to show up on your 'Walter Butt' and feast upon the flowers. So several days after it has opened and every slug and snail in the neighborhood is beelining for your winter blossoms. Go out after dark and pick them off, or put out a half drank can of beer on side to drown them, or sluggo, whatever your preferred method of dispatching the creatures that are intent on using those 2,600 teeth to turn your Algerian iris into replica of swiss cheese.

I mentioned the weather, it's been cool, wet and blustery the last few days.

Cheers to the start of the 2019 flower season, because it begins with an Algerian Iris.

Mark