Fields of Iris Germanica & Pallida 2018

Dear all,

after a quite long winter, with very low temperatures in December 2017 (till - 11°  C) and a lot of snow and an unbelievable quantity of water - well I would say a real long lasting shower - starting from February 2018 till April 2018, the Spring has come!

Temperatures over 26° C: in one week we passed from 5° C to a full summer day.

The iris that were sleeping till beginning of April 2018 started to blossom with a 15 days delay.

Top: the situation of the iris fields on 15th April 2018! Note how nude are the trees and the fields full of water while the sky is somehow winterish. Real cold. No flowers at all!


But after a few days the magic of the warmth of the nature made possible that everything awakes like in a sort of dance of colours and harmony.

The vision is quite impressive, I would say: the iris Germanica's are going to blossom!!

An almost total vision of the fields:

and here - bottom -  a picture with a close view: amazing colours!

Magical Manuscript about Narcissus (Daffodil) - XXI Century

My passion for flowers lays not only in the real flowers but also in their meaning through myths and magical spells. In this world where internet dominates our lives, I go back to recreating a magical manuscript about the flowers.

After the Iris (see my previous post) this time I drew a Daffodil, or Narcissus, with a magical text next.

This is a Narcissus Poeticus, i.e. the most parfumed kind of Daffodil, usually cultivated in France and now also in Piedmont (see my previous blogs)

Here I reproduced this flower, that represents the meaning of death and resurrection together. In magic this flower is deeply linked to the Iris, because their similar magical meaning and their fantastic scent.

The Narcissus was also a very beloved flowers of Marie Antoinette of France. In the book "L'Herbier de Maire- Antoinette de Elisabeth de Feydeau this flower is depicted in this way:

She writes: "On cultivait à l'époque de très nombreuses veriétés de narcisses pour orner les parterres et habiller les plates-bandes au printemps. LE narcisse des poètes (Narcissus Poeticus), appellé aussi Herbe à la Vierge, était très apprecié pour sa belle fleur blanche parfumée, dotée de son centre d'une couronne jaume soufre marginée de rouge."

Magical Manuscript about Iris XXI Century

One of my other passion is to write manuscripts i.e. herbals on aged pages; the one I am writing now is a Magical Manuscript whose title - in Latin - is: De Arte Magica cum Herbis that means "On the magic art through herbs". It's simply a collection of old texts concerning some rituals or beliefs of the past, with a flower painted on it. What matters for me is simply the artistic view of this.

I depicted here a Iris var. Germanica

Hommage à la France et à ses parfumes

En effet, la France représente la mère des toutes les nations pour la production de parfumes. J’ai vu que ce blog a en effet été beaucoup visité aussi par mes amis, les Français. En plus, moi j’habite en Piedmont et donc les liaisons entre ma région et la France ont toujours été très étroites, même si pas toujours amicales, mais cela c’est du passé.

Revenant aux parfumes, si on lit par exemple le livre l’Herbier de Marie Antoinette (Edition Flammarion) par Elisabeth de Feydeau on peut aisément voir la passion que toujours encore est vivante autour du monde des parfumes dans la terre du Roi Soleil. Dans cet ouvrage on parle avec doucisse de cette Reine Autrichienne à travers de l’amour que elle avait pour les fleurs, qu’on appelle son « ultime refuge »

Et pour moi les fleures, leur beauté, leurs parfumes sont - eux aussi - mon "ultime refuge" au temps de la vitesse et de la vie sans cesse, du stress et du internet.

C’est pour moi l’endroit où je revoie mes grands-parents et ou je me vois déjà « accroupie » par les ans qui vont passer, inexorables.

Par les parfumes on partage les passions, les plus belles: celles dans la vie et celles dans la famille et ça c’est le plus grand cadeau qu’on puisse avoir ; moi je partage avec ma femme (elle bien très liée au monde du parfume par ces ancêtres du temps jadis)  et j’aime penser de partager tout ça à mon tour à qui viendra.

Et encore en revenant à la grande culture française, mes paroles en effet tout simplement ne font autre chose que voler les pénibles soupirs du Poète, que seulement maintenant complètement je comprends … « Vivez, si m’en croyez, n’attendez à demain: cueillez dès aujourd’hui les roses de la vie ! ».

Voilà ses vers...

 

Works Winter 2017

I know, officialy winter starts on 21st December, but this year it seems that it anticipated a little, considering that already snowed two times and temperatures are constantly under 0.

Notwithstanding the cold we went on planting our new projects: roses of damask (cultivar Ispahan and Kazanlik) and Narcisis for parfumes. 

Bottom 4 pictures: preparing the fields for Narcis plantation removing the snow. All by hand!

Bottom: here the field ready for the Narcis:

Bio Certification

Considering the increasing request of bio products and considering that we are already working in a total natural way, our next step was to start the procedure to obtain the bio certification.

We started all the procedure and we got the first statement that we started this. Please pay attention to the fact that STILL we don't have officially this certification, but just the document we post here.

 

Works Autumn 2017

After a little break for holydays we went back to our cultivation. Actually the month of September is usually a very hard and important one. We have to dig out the roots and split them, dry the roots and prepare the products. 

In the meanwhile we went on with the plantation till up to 15.500 new iris roots (end October 2017) of Iris Germanica, Iris Pallida (the most), Iris Florentina, and some specific Hybrids like "Big Squeeze" (Black) and "Ruffled Godness" (Rose colour) (from a top French supplier).

As it is clear in the top picture we also decide to modify our system of displaying the foil. This new system actually provides a lot of saving in time and in foil. The idea is also to obtain a faster way - in 3/4 years - to dig out the roots.

Top

Top: the 1 year iris cultivation and the new plantation

Top: the new cultivation with old and new system of displaying the foils

Bottom: some pictures taken in a wonderful day of October 2017, at sunset. The (almost) total amount of new iris is visible in the photos

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Top & Bottom: it's possible to see also all the protection in wood to defend the cultivation from bomb of water. Alongside the squares deep ditches were dug to collect the water and avoid damages to the flowers