Kenroku'en in Early Summer / Iris

Last year we read about an iris festival, but didn't manage to find out exactly where it was or to attend. This year we did a bit more planning and preparation, and determined that there are two really big iris festivals in Japan, but neither is close by. As it would cost us many hundreds of dollars for the train tickets to go see them and being short of evidence of them being worth it, we decided to hold off and just go see the iris at Kenroku'en, which we'd not yet seen anyway. They have a few pretty significant plantings, which are easy to miss when they're not in bloom. They turned out to only feature one variety of iris, which was a little disappointing, but the weather was perfect and the admission free, so it would be silly to complain. Pictures follow and can be found on Flikr.