Wednesday, June 14, 2006

War of the Irises


When I see an Iris flower I have fond memories of visiting my great-grandma's house in downtown Salt Lake. She had a beautiful yard with huge flowerbed's full of irises. Irises need to be split when they get bigger and older. My grandpa (my mom's dad) would take divisions of the different flowers from grandma's house (his mom) and then plant them in his yard. As they got bigger and needed to be split again my mom would take them and plant them in her yard in Washington.

I see an iris in my grandpa's yard or in my mom's yard and I immediately think that it came from my great-grandma's house. Of course that's just a child's fantasy. I know they bought some too.

These are a few pictures of irises I remember in my great-grandma's yard.
#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9

My great-grandma passed away when I was sixteen. The house was sold and now someone else is enjoying all those beautiful irises.

I have yet to take divisions from my mom's yard for my own yard.

I was reminded the other day of another fond memory involving irises. This memory wasn't of the beautiful flowers though. I was outside looking at my daylillies when I noticed that they were producing seedpods too but on a much smaller scale.

That's when I remembered these. This is a picture of a seed pod of an iris flower after it's done blooming. From what I've read if you leave these pods on the plant for a little longer they're dry up, turn brown and crack open. The seeds are inside. I don't ever remember actually seeing one stay on the plant long enough to turn brown!

My brothers and I thought these were the coolest things ever. For wars! We'd gather up as many as we could and pelt each other as hard as we could! I don't remember how it started, I'm sure one of us was mad at another and we reached for the closest thing we could throw. I think when it hit the other person in the back and it burst open we realized what kind of armory we had! We'd chase each other all over the yard chucking these things at each other. Sometimes they'd burst open sometimes they didn't and we could throw it back at the other person. I'm sure there were times when we'd claim that we hadn't been hit.

"No you missed me. It didn't hit me!"

"oh come on. Don't lie. I can see the welt on your arm! It totally hit you!"

The game would then continue with someone throwing another pod at the other.

It was a game that could only be played for a small window of maybe a week in the summer. But every so often the war would resume when we found a lone seed pod hidden in the grass.
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 6/14/2006 11:08:00 AM :: 6 Comments:

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