Your posts got me to thinking. I remember smelling the iris that bordered my grandmother's yard, but did not think too much about them, other than they were pretty. Then as a mid-teen, I remember my mother's patch of iris, a wild mess on the edge of our home in Carmichael, California. Again, pretty flowers, but not much more than that. Fast track through college and marriage and buying our first home. I wanted iris to border the front yard, and as luck would have it we were planning two trips to Idaho that year, one in the spring and one in the fall to attend a cousin's wedding. When we arrived at my grandmother's, I asked her if I could have some of her iris that fall. She and her sister had been buying varieties for years, sharing and expanding the garden from my childhood. Grandma gave her assent and handed me a bunch of torn fabric to mark the ones I wanted. I guess she didn't notice her garden for several days, but when we arrived home, she called me, laughter in her voice. "My iris look like they all have sore throats. They ALL have ties around the stems." I guess I had marked more than she had expected, but in the fall she graciously helped me dig up those many iris, all NOIDs to me, pack them in cardboard boxes and we headed back to California with my loot. They soon graced the border of our new home, delighting me in their beauty and my remembrances of Grandma. When we moved a couple of years later, I put into the sales contract that I could take half of each clump of iris to our new home. Again, those iris bordered my yard. I moved, divided, shared and enjoyed those rhizomes for years, coloring friends' yards and enhancing the beauty of Tehachapi, Ca where we lived for 35 years. Then five years before we planned on retiring, I ordered 20 iris from Cooley's Iris, planning on letting them grow and develop so that I could divide them and take some with us to Idaho. Again, I put in the sales contract that half of the iris went with me to our 'temporary' home in Idaho. We had bought a starter house, planned to live in it for two years and then move to a custom house we would build outside of town. Again, the sales contract stipulated I could take the iris with me. I dug them up in October, placed them in the cold storage area under the porch of our unfinished house, and moved in February. A cold spring meant delaying planting and moving meant ignoring the iris. When I went down to plant them, half of them had molded. I had moved ten milk crates filled with labeled rhizomes and half of them were destroyed. I planted only a portion of the iris I had been babying for seven years. I was left with NOIDs from Grandma, and the following: Afternoon Delight, Before the Storm, Colortart, Competitive Edge, Fanfaron, Forge Fire, Panama Fling, Pink Froth, P. T. Barnum, Ruffled Ballet, Subtle Hint, Sweeter than Wine, Taco Supreme and Violet Rings. Writing down this list made me realize that I really only lost 6 named varieties, but many of my clumps were greatly diminished from 10-12 rhizomes down to 2-3 or sadly, 1. We had lived in this house for 4 years when some neighboring iris began to beckon, and I asked for the opportunity to trade, adding more NOIDs to my garden. Then last year I acquired 15 more clumps of more recent iris from a friend, which led me on the search to identify them. Then this year I actually bought two iris from the local nurseries, Tall Cool One and Florentine Silk. About that same time, I encountered ATP in my endeavors to identify two of the fifteen NOIDs that had bloomed this spring. Then you all know the story from there. With awesome 'iris for postage' from generous members I tripled my varieties. As I was digging more spaces, My Final Frontier for 2015, this summer in anticipation of receiving the postage iris, I often wondered about my grandmother. I know she notices my care of her babies, given to me over 40 years ago, and realizes she is responsible for my love of iris, my endeavors at expansion and my appreciation of their beauty as I wander through my garden each spring, talking to each bloom, calling it by name, and urging it on to its fulfilling gorgeousness. Thanks you, Susan Eva Hurd of Elba Idaho.
