Sherry Chandler » Some Thoughts on Irises
Some Thoughts on Irises
When the new Wavelength arrived in my mailbox two days ago, the first thing I noticed was that the cover illustration is very similar to a photograph I took myself earlier this year – on April 22 to be exact, a pellucidly sunny day after a storm. Ruth Rogers, who took the Wavelength photo, and I must have similar instincts. Or else there is something about irises beside the road.
But I wasn’t thinking about the road at all when I took the photograph. I just wanted to capture the brilliant color of the iris, because they don’t stay in gorgeous full bloom down the stalk like that for very long. It was only after I looked at the photo on the computer screen that I realized that the road almost dominates the picture, leading the eye off over the rise to look for adventure, like a novel. The Rogers photo has some nice chiaroscuro to add mystery, but the placement of the flower blocks you from following the road, brings you back into that shadowy place where poetry is written.
Not everyone is that impressed with irises. Coincidentally, a friend wrote, just yesterday, to bemoan the Sisyphean labor of maintaining perenniel beds:
I have a love affair with annuals. They only last a season, but they work hard while they’re here, sort of like that old country song - live fast, die young, and leave a happy memory. I try to summon the same affection for my perennials, but I get rather irritated at some of them. The iris, for example, bloom for one week, and then just sit there with that ugly foliage for the rest of the summer, sort of like someone who was a hotshot high school athlete and expects to coast for the rest of his life on his teenage glory —
And they have to be weeded all year long as payment for that one week of glory. I’m not that diligent in weeding mine, as you can see if you look at the photo closely.
Issue 12 of Wavelength contains poems by Dory Hudspeth and James Doyle, both of whom are always a joy, in addition to Jane Kretschmann. Subscriptions to Wavelength are $15/3 issues. Single copies are $6. Make checks payable to:
David Rogers
1753 Fisher Ridge Road
Horse Cave, KY 42749
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6 Comments
1. sherry replies at 25th May 2006, 10:21 am :
A reader responds thus: “I rather like your image of iris taking to the open road - something, they in fact, do. Ask yourself how that iris got there on the side of the road? It is, after all, a plant that grows from a bulb, and not an airborne seed. My mother used to clean out old thick beds of iris and dump the debris across and down the road (on H____’s property
) … and the next thing we knew there were iris growing all along the road between our house and H____’s barn.”
2. sherry replies at 25th May 2006, 10:31 am :
I guess these iris really do take to the open, well…forest.
3. Terry replies at 25th May 2006, 1:13 pm :
And they have to be weeded all year long as payment for that one week of glory.
I had irises in Iowa, but because I moved in February, I couldn’t dig them up to bring with me. My parents did bring me some Iowa tiger lilies about 10 years ago, though - it’s the same problem with weeding them all year for a few weeks of flowers. But luckily for me, they don’t bloom until August, which keeps me motivated to keep the bed in good shape. And after a month’s growth in the spring, the folliage grows in so thick they choke out all the weeds.
I’m really not much of a gardener. My favorite flowers are my 4 o’clocks, which thankfully reseed themselves every year and grow back without much tending.
4. sherry replies at 26th May 2006, 3:31 pm :
Ah but Terry, you take some beautiful flower pictures so you must have some beautiful flowers. As for gardening, I photograph and crop very selectively.
Some of Terry’s photos here: http://dailytroll.com/index.php?cat=17
5. Terry replies at 27th May 2006, 3:36 pm :
Thanks, Sherry! I do have beautiful flowers, mostly things that take care of themselves. If they had to depend on me, they wouldn’t make it. And thanks so much for the link. When the 4 o’clocks bloom, I’ll be posting lots of shots of them.
6. Sherry Chandler » S&hellip replies at 1st June 2006, 10:33 am :
[...] ls Filed under: General at 10:33 am Y’all remember a while back I shared some thoughts on irises, including a comment from an anonymous friend who prefers hard-working annuals. Said f [...]
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