White Iris

Seeing the Details

Posted on by Ann Mackay

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This year I’ve been making more of an effort to visit other people’s gardens. Now that Covid is less of a worry (although still around), we’ve been trying to get out and about to enjoy the things we used to do.

Visiting gardens gives the pleasure of looking at plants I don’t have in my own garden. If it’s one of the bigger gardens that regularly opens to the public, I’ll bring my camera. (I don’t take it to the smaller private gardens, that just feels a bit intrusive.) Amongst the plants I love to see are irises. I’d grow more of them in my own garden if I could, but seeing them elsewhere is a good substitute.

Photographing flowers in someone else’s garden can be a bit tricky. You can’t move anything or walk wherever you want to to change a distracting background. Here I’ve decided to get as close as I could to these bearded irises and then crop the images. This gets rid of the remains of flowers that had already gone over. (So much easier to have a quick tidy in your own garden!)

I was happy with the close-up of the white iris because I like the different colours of the flower’s markings. The pale orange iris doesn’t appeal to me quite so much because it’s a colour I’m less keen on. But the markings do help to make the photo a little more interesting. In my own garden I grow Siberian irises, which have beautiful markings. I photographed a couple of them last year for this post.

Pale orange iris
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Published by Ann Mackay

Photographer, mixed-media art adventurer and completely daft about plants.......

15 thoughts on “Seeing the Details”

    1. I don’t know Steve! But I don’t think so. I have seen it in other irises as part of a two- coloured iris and I have seen other flowers in that colour. (Today I saw hollyhocks of that pale orange growing beside a road.)

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  3. The bright orange ‘beard’ reminded me of the faux pollen hairs on the grass pink orchid. I suppose these have the same purpose: to entice a pollinator to make a visit. Do these contain pollen, or are they simply a visual enticement?

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  6. I do enjoy peeking at other people’s gardens in passing. I don’t take pictures though as I’m not visiting. Unfortunately I’m not set up for macro photography really and just try getting in as close as possible when attempting with mine, or wildflowers outside. The only irises I am seeing about right now are the yellow flag which grow round here. Never knew there were any orange ones. Love the fuzzy orangey bits in your photo.

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    1. We’ve made more of a thing of garden-visiting this year and there are a lot more gardens open again. It feels good to be able to get out a bit more! Those fuzzy orange beards on the irises are amazingly bright – makes them look almost like a synthetic yarn!

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