When I was twelve, Harvey, a member of the North star Lily Society, gave me a small box of miscellaneous stem bulblets that he had gathered when cleaning up his lily beds. He was a Louisiana Cajun transplant living here in Minnesota, and I loved to listen to him talk. He had the quintessential Cajun accent, but spoke fluent Minnesotan, and now and then, mixed in colorful "Louisiana" phrases. Even then, I knew his first language was French, but those expressions certainly were not!
Back to the bulblets, they were my first introduction to lilies. Of course, none were identifiable, but when you're twelve, who cares?
I had a dream last night, and one of Harvey's lilies was part of it. I was talking with an older gentlemen in the Society, and the conversation led to me describing one of Harvey's lilies in detail. The man replied quite matter of factly that that unnamed lily in my garden was 'Waldorf.'
When I awoke, I went straight to my pc, and looked up ""waldorf" in the Online Lily Registry. Okay, I know this seems like I'm gone off the edge, but strange things like this have panned out for me before, so why not indulge my psyche? .....Alas, "Waldorf" was not there. So I paged everything with "Wal." Not there either.
So right about now you're thinking: what does all this have to do with Wanda?
Well, as I went through everything with "Wal": Wahlula, Wallstreet, Walter, Waltztime.... the next in line was Wanda. I wondered if Wanda knew there was a lily with her name on it, and didn't want her to miss this thread.
So, I titled it "Wanda."
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P.S. Harvey also gave me a very special, more mature bulb of
Lilium michiganense. The local Lily Society had rescued a wild population before road construction near where we lived. Of all the types that eventually flowered from that box of bulbs,
Lilium michiganense was my favorite, by far.
