The ongoing drought has taken a toll on the spring flowers. But both in 2025 and 2026 the bearded iris ‘Innocent Star’ has shone.
According to Iris Wiki, George Sutton (founder of Sutton’s Iris Gardens) bred this cross of ‘Innocence Abroad’ and ‘Rock Star’ in 1999. Although it is listed as a tall bearded iris it is shorter than the two other tall bearded irises nearby. But had a lot of flowers and they lasted for several days even in our hot, dry March 2026. The brick red and creamy yellow flowers were a bright spot in an otherwise sad spring.
Bought from Gilbert H. Wild and Son for $10.50. They came beautifully packaged in pots with good root growth. But just small baby plants. I don’t think they will flower this year. Fed each with Bulbtone when planting.
2025-03-29
First flower. Maybe ever. Two of them. The color is between maroon and brick red. I wouldn’t call it purple.
Iris Wine Festival – TB EM 38″ Re. Like a fine wine, this full-bodied merlot pairs up with blushes and blends, peppered with rich mahogany and splashes of violet. White spotlights highlight this festival of blooms in an eye-catching display of delight. Very light fragrance.
Note: Their photo looks much more pale lavender than either their description or my photo.
(Frank Foster, R. 1980) Seedling# 75-412A. TB, 38″ (97 cm), Early to midseason bloom. Ruffled white ground plicata, stitched rose violet, very pale line through length of falls; gold beard. ‘Cayenne Capers’ X ‘Rococo’. Foster 1980
From AIS Bulletin #237 April 1980
Introducing WINE FESTIVAL-(Sdlg. 75-423A). TB, 38″. (Cayenne Capers X Rococo), E-M. Plicata perfection in this rose-violet on white ground beauty! Plenty of buds, good branching, ramrod stiff stalks and vigor hardiness plus! Ruffled, domed standards; wide falls are semi-flaring and ruffled. Excellent substance. A color showpiece long remembered. $25.00. Frank Foster.
Garden History
December 16, 2022
Bought two rhizomes of ‘Wine Festival’ from Gilbert H. Wild and Son for $12.50 each.
March 9, 2023
Iris order arrives. Planted.
April 8, 2025
Bloomed.
Purchased from Gilbert H. Wild and Son for $11.75. They came beautifully packaged in pots with good root growth. Fed each with Bulbtone when planting.
2023-04-05
First flower…only a month after I planted it. In my experience it usually it takes a year or two for irises to settle in.
Color described as “garnet-rose” (a rich, saturated, dark red). The photos on the sellers website made it look more rust than my photos which look more maroon (more muted, earthy red with chocolate tones).
Oxblood lilies in Central Texas are generally propagated by bulb division. The way the bulbs form is somewhat different than garlic, daffodils, tulips, or lilies. As far as I can tell, they send out these fleshy growth that look like thick roots and those form the new bulbs on the outside of the mother bulb.
Whether the various types of Rhodophiala produce via bulbs or seeds is suppose to be one way of distinguishing them from each other. The bulbs in my garden do both but I can’t say for certain that the same bulb does both. Oxblood lilies are classic pass-around plant in Central Texas and so my collection is quite a mixed bag.
I do have some clumps that offset like crazy. I have others that offset steadily but more slowly. This time of year they are waiting to come out of their dormancy, preparing for that rain which will force them into bloom. Even in the dry heat and parched ground, you can see the occasional bud waiting to poke up. This one dug up provides an illustration of how the buds grow on the outside of the previous year’s leaf stem.
Rhodophiala bifida bulb: the flower bud is forming on the outside of the stem.
Cardomom is a plant that’s doomed to fail with me. And yet I bought it anyway. Such is the impulsive acquisitiveness of a gardener confronted with a rare plant.
Elettaria cardamomum, true cardamom, is a tropical plant related to gingers. It thrives in the jungle understory where it receives filtered sunlight, 150 inches of rain a year (it likes its roots constantly moist), and a constant temperature in the 70s. Cardamom is unhappy when temperatures dip below 50. Such a climate is about as alien to central Texas as can be imagined. In Austin we experience temperatures from the teens to the hundreds, searing sunlight, and (now that we’re in semi-desert mode) 12 inches of rain.
Cardomom can grow into a huge plant, 12 feet tall and wide. However, it is unlikely ever to get out of a pot in Austin. Even if I built it its own special hot house, it probably will never flower much less set fruit and provide any of the special seeds used to spice Indian curries and Scandinavian baked goods.
Garden History
2026-04-19.
I left three pots of cardamom out one night when it froze and they all died back. I thought they were really dead. Then, after we had two days of heavy rains (last week?), a few leaves began poking up out of one of the pots.
2011-11-19.
Pot up the cardamom. I decide to divide the plant in half for several reasons. Roots are coming out of the holes in the bottom of the pot. Also the inside leaves of the plant have yellowed. Finally, it’s easier for me to move smaller pots in and out of the house all winter, as we do in central Texas where winter temperatures vary from the 80s to the 20s and back again overnight.
I cut the plant out of it’s pot. As I suspected, it’s pretty root-bound. The rhizomes look similar to ginger so I don’t think it will be any problem to divide.
I use my Japanese digging knife (from Lee Valley–unsolicited and unpaid recommendation) to cut through the crown of the plant and then pry the roots apart. Crown is probably the wrong word. Like its ginger relative, the cardamom plant is a group of tightly packed rhizomes. I might have cut through a few but mostly I was just wedging them apart.
A slip falls away and I pot it up separately.
The last time these crinums bloomed was in 2005. And it wasn’t even this group but the largest ones along the front fence. That spot (under the pecan tree) is apparently too shady now because they’ve never shown any inclination to bloom again.
2011-06-30
These flowers were from the same group of bulbs, the smallest of the bunch, which had languished under the front bedroom window next to the rain barrel. I finally rescued them from that unloving spot and moved them into the bog garden. They get more sun there. What caused them to flower was the couple of inches of rain that fell on June 22. Crinums are bog plants and they like wet feet. I haven’t read this elsewhere but I wonder if they are like rainlilies in that in order to flower they have to really dry out between drenchings.
2011-06-30