Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Iris Spring 1001:17


Once upon a time, several years ago, on a sunny hot afternoon, . . . Aunt Violet, Aunt Imogene, and Mom gathered around a patch of earth and dug up some of Aunt Violet’s pink iris bulbs. Three women in their 80s with shovel, spade, and bucket, working in the dirt on a hot summer day--a picture to remember. It was fun for them, because they are all gardeners. They were committing a gardening crime, because fall is the time of year you are supposed to move iris bulbs.  But I mightily craved pink irises to plant in my yard, and I wasn’t likely to be back at Aunt Violet’s again in the fall. As daughter and niece, I guess I rated enough for them to break the Garden Law. Summer transplant time notwithstanding, the pink irises have steadily, modestly, multiplied in my yard. They are budded out and due to bloom any day now. They are my favorite irises—partly for their color, mostly for their story.


My second favorite irises are planted in a narrow, side garden of the yard. They are short, yellow ones with rusty edges, which came from Mom’s mom’s garden. Grandma’s yellow irises are late bloomers, usually blooming a week or two behind all my other irises. I like their color. Grandma had an eye for pretty things. I think of Grandma every single time I look at them. She was kinda contrary, too.

Also, I have a patch of white irises, planted next to a patch of purple ones. These two colors are the earliest bloomers amongst their peers. I dug up starts of them at Mom’s several years ago, when she and Dad still lived on their farm. They are the descendants of irises which grew like crazy all over the yard, ever since I was a child. Mom swears that you can’t kill these particular irises. When she used to dig them up in the fall, to separate the bulbs and keep them from overcrowding, she’d toss the discards across the road into the ditches, and they would come up there the next year. So maybe those are my favorites, too.
The final member of my Iris scrapbook are some pale blue irises, which are blooming right now, along my fence. I bought those bulbs at Home Depot one year. They are pretty, but their character is still developing. As yet, they have no story. For irises and other garden plants and memories, stories go with the giving and receiving of them. Until that happens, they store up energy and spread out, waiting for their moment.


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