I grew up on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan. To say we had well drained soil is an understatement, and where ever there wasn't sod for lush grass yards, there was sand and beach grass. My parents were both history professors, and while my Dad grew up on a farm down in Mattoon, IL, he never planted much vegetable wise besides the odd tomato plant. My mother, the bookworm, never had any outdoor aspirations in the least. We did, however, have some flower gardens. The largest was along the retaining wall holding a dune from spilling over into our driveway and front yard. Dad always had rose bushes, and often Glads, and in clumps here and there he had iris. As a kid I was far more interested in swimming & body surfing in the lake, or playing kick soccer with my friends to pay much attention to the gardens. I was attracted to the iris though, and primarily because these big bright flowers had the most wonderful smell in the world, and those weird fuzzy beards (seriously? thought child me, why beards?). I remember he grew selfs mainly; we had yellow, orange, blue, dark purple, red, and I swear I thought we had green - which makes me hunt for green iris to this day.
So what got me started on buying iris for myself? First the Acoma growing at the house I bought, because they smell amazing. They smell like my childhood idea of iris should smell like. (A side note here - I liked the scent so much that my mother bought teenager me a perfume called "Iris de fete" or some such, that was a spin off of all the flowers used to make a popular perfume of the time. I still have a very small amount, and yes, it smells like irises). The second culprit was the Schreiner Catalog. I had bought my Dad some medians, and some broken color iris to jazz up his garden, so of course, they started sending me the catalog. Which I tried to ignore for a few years. Then I ordered, then I ordered again, then I joined ATP and was enabled by all these iris people with amazing iris far beyond the scope of the Schreiner catalog. And so here I am with gardens full of iris. And I make a point to smell them, and I always smell my Acoma last before I leave the garden.
