Monday, April 11, 2016

Irises #AtoZChallenge

The simple iris taught my spouse and I a lesson, a long time ago.  I'd like to share that lesson with the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, on I day.


There are so many kinds of irises.  Some are sweetly scented, like my Kool-Aid irises.

 Early spring irises, taken last month by an in law who lives in New York City.

 More early spring irises.

Now, for our story.

When my spouse and I were in our 20's, we bought our first house.  My spouse was an airman in the United States Air Force.  We didn't think we could ever be homeowners, but the couple who sponsored us in spouse's first duty posting were homeowners, and they encouraged us.  We bought a small brick two bedroom home in the South Central neighborhood of Wichita, Kansas.  It had a large, fenced yard.  We imagined our garden there and went to work dreaming of when spring would come.

Spring came, and with it, a bunch of plants with fan shaped leaves started to come up along the fence.

Spouse looked at the line of leaves with his brow furrowed.  "I know what those are", he said.  "I saw these growing in some vacant land behind my childhood home.  We don't want them."  With that, he took his shovel, and dug them all up.  And there were a lot of them- it was a long fence line.

But a couple of more erupted after the dig out.  We left them there, busy with other projects.  One day, they flowered.

They were beautiful bearded irises.

My spouse had dug up a long line of expensive, beautiful, bearded irises because he made an assumption and didn't have the patience to wait to see what the plants would do.

We learned our lesson.  We never did anything like that again.  We think first.  We wait to see what will come up.


Life is like that - a series of learning from your mistakes.

So are the days of our lives.

17 comments:

  1. Oh my! But you did manage to save some of the wonderful Irises. Loved your concluding line!
    @yenforblue from
    Spice of Life!

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    1. Thank you for stopping by. We both blogged about irises, I see - but I enjoyed your take from another part of the world.

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  2. I never let my husband near a shovel in the garden. Even the man who know helps with the garden was going to tear out my yarrow thinking it was tansy. Patience. It just takes patience. My irises are all peeking through what's left of the snow.

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    1. Yes...patience. Eventually, we both will have true spring.

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  3. Lovely flowers... I like your story, hope to be homeowner with my husband soon :)

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  4. Alana, it's hard to be patient sometimes, but where plants go I can't tell what is what usually until after it blooms so I know not to dig anything up until I know for sure. At least you & the hubs learned a valuable lesson. Thanks for sharing another story with us!

    ~Curious as a Cathy
    All Things Vintage: Ivory Soap #AprilA2Z

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    1. At least we did learn that lesson. Now we just dig things up by accident!

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  5. Love this post. Irises are so pretty no matter what variety they are!

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  6. Purple Irises...my FAVORITE! That was a hard lesson learned. You know me...I save flowering weeds. I have saved and transplanted Irises that were started by my Grandmother in Iowa...they transplanted to Texas and thrived under the care of my mother and myself. Alas, in our last move, I didn't get back to get a few bulbs to carry on the Iris Tradition.
    Sue at CollectInTexas Gal

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  7. Ah, so I is also for impatience! It took me years to learn that it is better to stop and think rather than do and apologize later. Beautiful purple irises!

    Gail’s 2016 April A to Z Challenge
    Theme: The Fun in Writing #218

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  8. Beautiful story. I'm happy that some of those irises survived. I understand about lack of patience. I am so eager to get started on my little gardening business. It snowed last night and rained today, and the ground is way too soggy, so I'll have wait a bit longer. Still, I don't like waiting. The waiting game can be composted, lol.

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  9. Ouch. Today you'd probably look it up on the internet before digging. I hope.

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  10. None of my Iris are showing anything yet. But I believe in week or two my tulips will be showing colors.
    Coffee is on

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  11. Luckily for us, mom took up botany so she has some idea regarding flowers and gardens... of recent times though, we've stuck more towards cultivating fruits and veggies than flowers.

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  12. ohh no that was a loss. But glad that few still remained. They look so pretty :)

    A Whimsical Medley
    Twinkle Eyed Traveller

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  13. One person's weed is another person's flower

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