These are my grandmother's irises. According to family lore -- always an unstable resource -- successive generations of these flowers have been growing in the yard since the late 1930s, or early 1940s, depending on whom you ask. When I moved home again in the early 1980s, the plants had formed massive, dense clumps of rhizomes that resembled manhole covers. The roots were so congested that the plants barely flowered. I dug them up, broke them apart, stuffed 25 rizomes into each of 20 shopping bags, and hauled the bags over to Bronx Green-up at the Botanical Garden. My understanding is that Gram's irises are now in schoolyards all over the borough. She'd love that. AND -- there were still enough rhizomes left over to start over, and over, and over. These are most definitely perennial.
When I have a flattering (or at least encouraging) "after" picture, I'll post the embarrassing "befores" of my studio clean-up, clear-out, get-organized-finally project. I found out that the local Salvation Army will take books, so that is going to speed things along quite handily. When I first got the de-clutter bug, I bought a book on the subject that revealed to me that my main source of clutter is . . . books.
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3 comments:
these are beautiful! and I'm looking forward to your studio pix...
thanks, natalya, and for the kind thoughts for my late puss.
I've been checking the QA blog and waiting and waiting for your blog to catch up ;-)
I commend you on your ongoing organizing, clean up efforts. As the woman who finds sticking to this sort of effort daunting (although I did organize some thread last night) I am impressed! The story of the iris and the fact that they are spreading cheer throughout the Bronx is wonderful. They are one of my favorite flowers.
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