So I had this idea that I’d be able to look back through old blog posts and find out when the iris bloomed in our front yard each year, and that I’d be able to offer this slightly tongue-in-cheek riff on how bloggers writing about their gardens could create a sort of informal phenological network, as we documented in odd but useful detail the comings and goings of the things in our gardens.

(L. Heineman photo)

Phenology is one of those things you think is already figured out – when things leaf out and flower, how natural systems respond on an annual cycle to the vagaries of climate. But, as I’ve written before, there’s not a whole lot of good data on this subject. So I’s thinkin’ I’d just look through my blog for posts about the first blooms in the big bed of purple iris in our front yard, and then run off a riff along the lines of, “Is there any problem bloggers can’t solve?” Only it turns out I’d been really bad about this, disorganized here just like in every area of my life. So I’ve no idea when the purple iris first bloomed. This year, it was April 19.

As my friend Annette used to say, “Expectations are a funny thing.”