Schreiner's Iris Gardens

I love when I find a plant or bulb resource that just blows my mind. Schreiner's Iris Gardens in Oregon is my new infatuation, and as you can tell by their packaging- they have plant lovers in mind! After we returned from a trip to Yosemite a couple weeks ago I was heavily thinking of my grandma, who we lost to Lou Gehrig's disease this past fall. This time last year my heart was hurting and I went through fall (my favorite time of the year, usually) in a deep funk. What got me out of it was my early spring bulbs: daffodils and irises brought brightness and color to an otherwise dark period. Irises lined the street of my grandparents property in Elk Grove, and those same irises have been dug up and shared many times with several family members and friends over the years.
Although I have received plenty of iris rhizomes from my grandma and my mom, I wanted to create new heirlooms for our family by introducing some new colors. Most of the irises in my family are lavendar, but there are hundreds of other options out there! Right now happens to be the optimal time for planting new iris rhizomes, so I happily placed my order the Schreiner's. They arrived today; each of the 18 bulbs in my order were cozy and snuggly in a nice amount of packaging- not shoved in a mesh bag like you would get from some mail order sites.

And if you look closely, they were each beautifully labeled! Each label included their name, what kind of iris they are, how tall they are- AND it includes a photo of the flower.

So you wanna know what I bought? Well, I won't go into details on each specific one (I got 18 of them! We'd be here all night! You can check out their website for that info). But for starters, I ordered Bumblebee Deelite (pictured above, right) to show my appreciation and love of bee's. I also ordered a couple of black irises, like "Yosemite Nights"(because we LOVE Yosemite), and I ordered "Hello Darkness" (shown above left, black) because it immediately made me sing Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence".

Hello darkness, my old friend,

I've come to talk to you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.

I ordered Gnus Flash (above, left) because of my fellow local blogger at Garry's Garden Gnus, and Grateful Red on the right is just simply beautiful and I am a sucker for anything that comes in red. I can't wait to get them all in ground, and patiently await spring when they have their moment to shine!



You can check out Schreiners on Facebook, sign up for their newsletter here, and if you'd like to get some in ground now like I am, visit their online catalog and place an order (psst- they are also having a summer sale here)!