Ode to an Iris

Here she is. My iris.

Blooming officially May 2. In New York, her blooming date was around Father’s Day, so my guess is about right…we are about one month ahead of the season on Long Island.

This iris traveled from Huntington, Long Island, New York in a plastic bag with a little dirt in November of 2007 when my father in law sold his home and moved in with us. We planted it along the driveway before the garden was planned. I just stuck it in the dirt and hoped for the best. Last year we had a lot of green and one flower or two. This year, she’s a mass of thick blossoms.

My father in law can’t remember where he bought it, or when. “Oh, years ago,” he says with a shrug.

We got a few blooms from it on Long Island. It had a coveted spot of sunshine in a little square bed on the lawn that houses my iris and the daylilies.

In Virginia…it is thriving. It is just soaring. It seems to love its hot, sunny location.

Irises LOVE this part of southern Virginia. I have never seen so many irises since moving here. All along the back country roads you see huge patches of thick iris growing at the ends of driveways, along farm lanes. Everyone’s got an iris or two. You can even find ads in the newspaper from people who divided their iris and have plants to give away – they have so many, they run classified ads to give their plants new homes!

Our town, Prospect, is a ghost of its former self, with many of the old Main Street buildings boarded up or turned into apartments. There are a few large Victorian or turn of the century houses along where the old railway line used to be. I drive through Prospect on my way to church on Sundays just to look at the irises. At the corners, along the front lawn, edging the railway side of the street are enormous clumps of iris, some measuring three or more feet in diameter. Most of the irises are white, but you will see some blues and purples among them. How long they have been growing is anyone’s guess, but some are clearly decades old.

One of my goals for the garden is to plant one or more irises every fall. I hope to build a collection along the edge of the woods…and knowing how iris seem to love Virginia, I believe that one day I’ll have some real show-stopping clusters too.

If anyone has a guess as to which variety of iris this is – especially given the strong grape-soda pop smell of the flowers – let me know PLEASE. I would love to add more.

Here’s to iris!