Iris domestica
Theladygardens@aol.com (Mon, 29 Aug 2005 10:00:05 PDT)

Dennis and others. Maybe your joke is right on track. I. britanny
spearseinsis. I have over 1000 different iris hybrids in my garden. I have
frequently given teenagers iris to grow because of the names. A few young men have
asked to grow an iris called 'Topples Dancer' and I have given it to them.
Many people pick an iris because of the name it has. Sometimes it has
special meaning for them, sometimes they just like it.
An iris named 'Megan Elizabeth' got one father excited, it was the names of
his two daughters, he had to have that iris.
After an article appeared in the SF newspaper about my garden and the hours
I opened it to share with the public, 4 young men came from San Francisco just
to see the iris named 'Baboon Bottom'.
People often are looking for an iris they have heard of and never seen, just
because the name interested them.
A few times young couples have shown up and the boys are mumbling about
this not being their idea but their dates wanted to come here, mumble mumble.
I always give the males a tablet and pencil and suggest they amuse themselves
by making up sentences using only the names of the iris, and I suggest a
few. They get so amused at what they come up with it almost becomes a
competition among their group and they stay for hours, really enjoying themselves.
Not infrequently this leads to questions that require answers where they are
really learning something and becoming interested.
There is a series of iris named after the Harry Potter characters and I want
all of those myself.
Some areas of the garden have groupings of iris by subject, such as the
Space area (Titan's Glory, Starship Enterprise, Wing Commander, and others) the
marriage area (Significant Other, With This Ring, Lovers Lane and others) and
the animal area (Chocolate Moose, Gnu Blues, Python's parasol, etc). We
get some amusement out of doing this with some of the iris.
Carolyn in Los Gatos