Happening in the Garden, #Six on Saturday

This post is in response to the Six on Saturday garden photo challenge hosted by The Propagator.

1.) Irises

Our irises seem to be at their peak right now. Driving to the house the other day, I was really happy to be greeted by all these irises.

2.) Peonies

Just a short while ago, I saw that the peony bush was full of buds about to open. Then, two or three opened. Now, it is full of big open blooms with frilly interiors. I didn’t frame this photo as accurately as I wanted, because of the sun blacking out my phone, but you can still see it’s a big, healthy bloom.

3.) Azalea

Our white azalea is also fully bloomed out. I don’t think it did quite as well last year.

4.) Chives

This is an unusual place to see a flower, but this is our chives in the herb garden. We have been buying some grocery store herbs still, because some of our plants are too small to harvest. We have plenty of chives now though. I love being able to go out to the garden and trim some for the recipe I’m making.

5.) Parsley

Italian flat leaf parsley is really great for a lot of recipes too.

6.) Peppermint

There’s a trend for a new style of salad with watermelon, feta cheese and fresh mint. It may sound odd, but the combination is really tasty. I made a salad like that with our fresh mint last spring and may need to do that again.

Purple Iris — Tanka Poem

Purple iris photo taken from my garden

I thought I had the perfect photo subject for this month’s purple theme in the Life in Color photo challenge, with this purple iris from my garden. It was difficult to get a decent shot with my phone camera. The sun was so bright that my screen looked black, and it was hard to tell what I was framing. After several attempts, I captured these two.

Yesterday, on a whim, I wrote a haiku about a tree on my street. After doing some reading on other Japanese poetry forms, I thought I’d try a tanka poem about my iris. A tanka poem has this pattern of syllables, 5/7/5/7/7.

Majestic and robed

in purple, the emperor

stands, dwarfed by his bright

entourage of attendants

brilliant in their regalia.

© 2021 Susan Joy Clark

We grow some Japanese varieties of iris, and it would be great to pair those with a Japanese poem, but they are not in bloom yet.