Garden Discovery

My irises have been blooming for about a week now.  They are one of my favourite flowers and so easy to grow.  A lady from our chapel gave me a garbage bag full of iris plants a few years ago.  There were probably at least 50 rhizomes.  I gave a bunch away and planted the rest wherever I had room for them.  My biggest planting is by the steps.

I just love the blue/purple colours.  They make me happy whenever I look at them.  I'm so glad I said yes to the garbage bag full of plants when I had no idea where I would plant so many.

Then, a couple of days ago, I discovered THIS:

Where on earth did that come from?  I've had these plants for three years and thought they were all the same variety.  Apparently not.  This one is a deep, rich purple with golden yellow.  Please excuse the iffy photos - it's super windy here today.  Not only are these a completely different colour, they are much larger as well - at least twice as large.

These two plants are side by side.  See the difference in size?  To top it off, I have not one but TWO of these darker irises.  I'm pretty excited!  I almost dug up all these plants and gave them away this spring.  I did dig up a couple, but I'm glad I kept these.  A nice surprise!

Thanks for visiting today!