Along with the garden we always had along the edge of the grassy area by the driveway when we lived at the Swanson Farm, Mom planted purple dahlias in a row in the front yard by the mail box. They were three feet tall and filled with royal purple flowers in the summer. I’ve tried dahlias in different spots in my yard with mild success. This summer I have a couple of bushes that are growing thanks to the rain, but usually by hot July days they just give it up. Mom’s were beautiful. Her success in growing dahlias must have been the handy irrigation water that ran in the ditch next to the house that Dad used to flood the lawn close to the strip of dahlias. He probably added a lot of cow manure right before she planted them too. But they were hers and any compliments went directly to her.
She had several colors of iris in different flower beds. She could name her friends who she had traded plants. She had some real early purple iris which she called weed iris. They weren’t the giant hybrid flowers that you can pick up at garden shops today. They were the unpretentious smaller and shorter purple that are harbingers of spring after the long cold of winter. I have some in my garden that I brought home from Mom’s garden years ago. They still bloom early and remind me of her nickname of weed iris. They require no care to speak of and probably get skipped in the water department more that they should. But I love them, because my Mom had them in her garden.
I had a couple of other iris plants that I picked up at Mom’s. One was an light orchid color of lavender. I think it finally died off. I have another that blooms every other year that had a smaller flower with a tall stem that has two colors of shades of light purple. It might have been hers.
My Aunt Belva was proud of a few irises she had in her yard. She gave me a pale blue, white with purple edges and butterscotch. The blue is long gone. The purple edged one is around and blooms once in a while, but not this year. John had one of those in his yard in Boston. It really grows well with all the moisture they get all year. The butterscotch one, well that is a weed iris for sure. It had probably lasted 20 of the 33 years we have lived in Lakewood. I separated them and planted them along the outside fence. They get no care or water. There they are blooming away in their big mundane pale butterscotch color flowers. Every year Stan comments on how these guys are so not the prettiest flower in the spring. But there they are making life more cheery for the rest of the iris. Giving the neighbors a chance to compare and contrast and make choices about splendor of the season. I like them well enough to not dig them up as they are hardy.
My Grandma Anna Swanson had a few irises in front of her house too. They were bright yellow. When John lived in Longmont, I planted a few in his front yard. They took off and always brightened up the spring. He has a few of those in Boston now too. I never did get any that would keep growing at my house.
There is a place in Boulder that had rows and rows of irises. They let you dig up brown paper sacks full of plants and roots for a price. It’s a good way to fill your yard full of blooms in the spring, but not near as memorable as knowing a family member had them in their yard also.
Grandma Anna also had three big peony plants along her driveway. I think they were pink. They must have been there a hundred years. I’ve heard that about peonies, that they last hundreds of years. I planted several bushes in my yard along the fence lines. Most are pink, but I have a few white bushes in the front on the corner. Stan is not too happy about white peonies either. He is kind of an opinionated guy about the silliest stuff. I think they are pretty. At one time, I had all white flowers on that corner in early spring from tulips, tall wild iris that were there when we moved in and the white peonies. I sprinkled some phloxes seed on that corner too that I had gathered from Mom’s yard. Once all the white peony flowers die off, up bloom the phloxes in soft pink.