May Namesakes

By Bess Taylor

April ran hot and cold around here this year. I always want to believe she is a more consistent month, but she’s not. One day the temps flirt with eighty degrees Fahrenheit and three days later it snows. I guess it’s just wishful thinking. We become so bored with cold weather that we believe we can will April to be nice, but she’s just too capricious and won’t have it. She may be pretty, but let’s face it, she’s flighty.

Now, May is a month you can count on. Any surprise cold snaps in May would be considered flukes, not the norm. In May even the slug-a-bed shrubs like hibiscus finally yawn and unfurl their leaves, just when you’re sure you’ll never see them again. May breezes carry the old-fashioned perfume of lilac, peony and wisteria. May showers bleed the glowing hues of the azaleas together like colored fountains. When the May sunlight falls through the irises in the morning and evening, it illuminates them like paper lanterns. Here in the piedmont, May is a party. Get out there and mingle!

The first year we lived in our Marshall home were delighted to discover an old patch of irises by the back door. We hadn’t noticed them when we bought the house the previous October, as they had been neatly mown over. We believe these to be Iris pallida, one of the most common bearded iris forms found around here, but they are really too wonderful to be called “common”. The flower is lavender-blue with a white and yellow beard which creates a fine welcome mat for any bee fortunate enough to receive the invitation to sip it’s heavenly-scented nectar. A friend of mine insists it smells like Pez (those little candies in the cartoon-head dispensers). Indeed, the iris root is the source of orris, an herbal powder that candy makers and perfumers have put to splendid use for ages.

Most forms of irises grow from spreading rhizomes, so they are easy candidates for propagation and division. We have picked up and shared a number of various sorts of iris over the years. I bought some nice yellow flag iris from local plant nursery Virginia Natives, the flowers of which echo the bright goldfinches. Ann Cabaniss who used to own Greenhouse Books in Marshall (which had a fabulous garden section- I miss it!) gave me several tall ruffled forms of plum, copper and pink when she divided hers. Marlyn gave me clumps of Siberian iris. My mom gave me dutch iris bulbs in blue, white and purple. My gardening neighbor Liz gave me some bicolor bearded beauties.

Since I don’t always know the proper names for some of these generous gifts to my garden, I will sometimes refer to one by the name of its benefactor. I have found photos that match the Siberian iris that Marlyn gave to me in different catalogues under different names. If someone asks me what it’s called, I might say “it’s a Siberian iris sometimes referred to as ‘Caesar’s Brother’, but I like to call it ‘Marlyn’”. Serious botanists may frown at this method, but my aim is not to mislead. I am merely trying to organize things my way until I have scientific proof of the plant’s rightful moniker. Once I have that I will not insist on calling it other than what it is.

I was in an online gardening discussion group a couple of years ago. My screen name was Bess-of-the-Piedmont. At one point, a gardener sent in a photo of a beautiful tall pink iris with an orange beard and wanted to know the name. I said I had one too, and called mine “the pink ruffled one from Ann”. She told me she would call hers “Bess-of-the-Piedmont”! I was thrilled.

My pink ruffled iris from Ann has since disappeared. I watch the spot where I planted it and hope it will surprise me by coming back some day. In the meantime, I am comforted by the hope that a pink ruffled iris nicknamed “Bess-of-the-Piedmont” is perhaps opening its petals in the soft breezes, somewhere far away. That something so divine could have been named after such a commoner as myself warms my heart like May sunshine.


Copyright Bess Taylor 2007


Garden Page Archives:
3/07 The First Seed Planted
4/07 Planning and Believing