WYSIWYG? Sort of...

What you see is what you get?  Well with irises not always.  First there are the colors in the photo.  Every camera imparts a pitch toward red or blue, usually called 'warmth' of color.  There are other variations in the intensity of color or saturation.  So here's a photo of 'Golden Ring' which I received from Mid-America last year.

 

 

SDB 'Golden Ring', T. Johnson, 2011

It's always a treat when a rhizome blooms the first year it is planted and this has happened often with M-A offerings.  Their rhizomes are top notch.

As the picture shows Tom Johnson describes a precise band of gold around a mahogany fall.

Here's what it looked like today in my garden:

It's clearly much paler than the picture above.  Is this a case of misrepresentation? Not at all.  The color of the bloom can be affected by soil, seasonal variations and the first bloom may not be the best. It's obviously a lovely flower and I have to comment on it's tiny nature. The entire bloom is about 4 inches wide and only 6" off the ground.

Let's see what next year brings!