Dad's Japanese Iris, home

I grew up in the Rhode Island suburbs, and one of the joys of my dad's life was his flower garden. (For who knows what reason, he never grew vegetables.) A favorite in his perennial border was plant known as the Japanese Iris. The flowers on Iris ensata, an Asian native, have been compared to fluttering butterflies, and it's easy to see the resemblance. They're much less showy than their "bearded" iris counterparts, but I think of them as more refined, which is fine by me. When my parents passed away and we sold the ancestral abode, one thing I wanted to take with me was a bit of my father's Iris bed. While the plants have thrived in their new home, they don't flower all that often. This year, we only got one bloom, but its brief day in the sun... following last night's downpours... was cause for celebration.