My mother had wonderful gardens, containing daffodils, grape hyacinths, spanish bluebells, azaleas, lilacs, Virginia bluebells, trillium (giant white), daylilies, roses, asters, chrysanthemums, and many other things. But most of all I loved her iris. She had Wabash, Ola kala, Helen McGregor, William Setchell, and many more. Even as a small child, I helped her weed her garden, quickly learning which were the weeds and which were the various flowers, She would receive Schreiners catalog and both of us would delight in poring over it, naming our favorites.
I was forty by the time Hubby and I bought this house. Within a year I was already creating my gardens. I can recall about that time Dave Barry wrote something to the effect of, "Don't ever let the rototiller know you're afraid of it." Well, I didn't. We rented one and I bravely set about tilling my outlined garden space. And that dang thing pulled me into the rose of sharon trees so many times that I was black and blue all over!
The first irises of my own were Dusky Challenger, Jesse's Song, Skating Party, and Beverly Sills, with a bonus of what I now think was Bubbling Over. They were all beauties, but 7 years later an autoimmune disease struck me down. For about a decade I neglected my iris, and during that decade they all died but the bonus, which by then had also lost its label.
When my husband finally retired a few years ago and could help me then with some of the heavier tasks of gardening, I began again. By then deer and groundhogs had moved into the neighborhood and were decimating almost all my perennials except for my last remaining iris clump. That's when I decided to build a new garden, based mostly on irises. And here I am with about 56 cultivars in my Have list, and way too many in my Want list.
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