It’s a wonderful, bulbous life

When I wrote that bulbs have a tough life, I was looking at only one side of the story.  They have a wonderful life!  Just look at the exuberant Iris and Crocus and how they add color and exuberance to the early spring landscape.  They were under the snow earlier this week, but they really shook it off and kept going.

The Iris on this slope particularly intrigued me.  My photograph does not do justice to how they transform Anna’s Overlook.  Iris reticulata is a native of southwestern Asia: Turkey through Iran and northwards.  The High-Altitude Gardener database has pictures  of different cultivars that range from a skinny to fulsome and blue to purple.