Wildflowers and iris...and we broke the rules.

Never thank someone for a gift from their garden.* It is not a rule I learned from my family, but from gardeners I met in this town where I live today. Better yet, they would say, steal the plant.

And I have stolen my fair share - iris that grew into the street, coreopsis that seeded in the gutter along the street edge, bulbs that were about to be bulldozed to make room for houses, and cuttings from althea shrubs whose colors I admired. And I cannot count the number of occasions I have gathered seeds - from everywhere.**

I received a call mid-day from my friend, RC. A road in our town is being widened. She noticed a woman digging up iris along the area of construction.My friend stopped her truck and started a conversation with the gardener. ["Are you dividing your iris?"] It seems the widened road will extend over this iris bed (this yard was full of iris - probably hundreds of square feet of flowerbeds full of iris) and so the lady was moving them - saving a few for herself and for church friends. My friend had arranged for us to go there tonight and dig iris.

We drove just out of town towards a rural development, not so rural anymore. A roadrunner scooted out from the brush, ran along the road a bit and then headed back to safety. "There's Daisy!" said my friend, like I knew she would. Roadrunners remind both of us of our mothers. It may be the only thing they had in common. But we both acknowledge these odd birds as messengers from our mothers.

We stopped at a neat brick house located across the road from new school construction. We knocked on the door and out came the husband, Mr. E, in his denim overalls. He called back into the house for his wife. She had almost given up on us and was about to take her shower. So she came out in her slippers and house coat with a smile on her face and a crown of silky white hair on her head. "No, no, you aren't late,"  she said as my friend introduced me and we asked what plants she wanted to share. Mr. E sat on the porch and watched us as we worked.***

Mrs. E and her brother, I think, had dug up most of the iris she wanted to keep and had found some bluebonnets along the roadway that she also transplanted. We loaded our bags and pots with some of the plants left behind. We talked about gardening and friendship. We dug up the remaining iris and moved the "extra" clumps to a place where they were safe and saved for the church friends.

Then she took us to the place where other bluebonnets were waiting and she let us take a few of those.****

We thanked her and she thanked us. And she hugged us. And she blessed us - really. She said, "God bless you."

AMEN.

Iris waiting to be divided and planted.

Bluebonnet (with clover and some other junk tagging along)

NOTES:


*http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/favorite/msg0620260827315.html?7 (I am going to insist that our "thanks" were not for the plants, but for the kindness.)

**There are saved seeds in bags and boxes all over my house. I have wondered what response we might get if someone found them. "What kinda seeds are these? Looks like contraband."

***He was wielding a cane and was not (according to Mrs. E) up to yard work. I felt a bit like he was also guarding his sweet wife from the wild heathen middle-aged women (We were carrying sharp shooters!).

****Bluebonnets do not transplant well, but I am willing to try.

[I should note that I have a great deal of work ahead - dividing iris and finding spots for them in the yard. Still, what a lovely evening we had! When I got home I took off my shoes and emptied out the dirt that had migrated into them while I was digging. (DH never asked where I had been and how I got dirt in my shoes.) I may be transplanting the bluebonnets by the light of a flashlight or first thing in the morning as night has arrived.]