Projo Garden Blog

Tall bearded iris -- I think it's Indian Chief, from browsing photos at the Historic Iris Preservation Society.

Our old house came with the little stand above, which fights for sun. I weeded and fed them about a month ago, trying to expose the corms that stick out sideways at ground level to sun.

When I was a kid, one of my shortcuts on the walk to school was a path across a weedy vacant lot that stretched between backyards along two streets. It was too narrow ever to build on, the grownups said, before the ranch house was born.

In June, as the school year neared an end, a patch of these irises appeared in the middle of nowhere, next to the path. Their extravagant, improbable blooms smelled strongly fruity, not at all delicate.

Every year, I stick my nose deep into the first iris to bloom, close my eyes, and I'm 10 again and summer's almost here.

Comments

karen anne said:

I remember one lone blue iris, growing in the no-man's-land between the garage and the lot line in the house we moved away from when I was 8-9.

Link | May 31, 2007 12:44 PM
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Sheila said:

Maybe there were more no-man's-lands then. Now I mostly see irises in formal clumps. But I've always wondered where those irises came from. It must have been farmland at one time.

Link | May 31, 2007 1:32 PM
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Sheila said:

Maybe there were more no-man's-lands then. Now I mostly see irises in formal clumps. But I've always wondered where those irises came from. It must have been farmland at one time.

Link | May 31, 2007 6:00 PM
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