I have always had a soft spot for bearded iris. They were my mother’s favorites. “Flags” is what she called them. She would get so excited when we came across someone who was giving a bunch of rhizomes away. We had groups in our yard that would inevitably be pulled out by my dad. He just couldn’t see their value since they bloom for such a short time.

We had some in our garden about 10 years ago. The grass grew up in their beds. The cutworms and slugs would decimate them and we got rid of them. But we’re ready to try again.

We took an overnight trip to Portland at the beginning of June. Originally the plane was to visit a couple of nurseries (I can’t believe we still have not made it to Cistus) and a couple of craft breweries. But I remembered a couple of recent posts of the iris and peony growers near Salem. Heck, it is only 35 more miles.

We decided to make Schreiner’s Iris Garden our first stop. We left Edmonds shortly after 8am and stopped shortly after 9am for breakfast in Centralia. Service was slow and we didn’t get back on the road for another hour and made it to the garden by noon.

The day was sunny and warm – perfect for strolling in the garden. It was the last open weekend for the garden and the irises were not in their prime but still wonderful. It was a riot of color – blue, white, gold, purple, tan, brown. I did not bring a note pad so I didn’t get the names. We’re getting ready to put an order in. We’ll probably start with a starter collection.