A Voice from the Hinterland
Kathy Haggstrom of Anchorage, Alaska
The snow pack is melting, but it's usually variable this time of year, so I don't get excited about the little ups and downs. Iris setosa bloom will be roughly June 1st, give or take a week either way. I'll tell you when I see the first one, though I can already tell you how it will come about. I will be driving by someone's house with a great southern exposure, and there will be a big lush clump planted against the foundation, with at least 4 or 5 blooms opening at once (this will be prior to June 1st). I will turn off on the nearest side street, and do a driveby to get another good look, and then I will circle once more and stop. I kind of soak it in for a little while, and then all of a sudden my mind is busy analyzing the bloom, trying to determine its ancestry (what part of the state it came from), and if the blossom is worthy enough to return in the fall and ask for seeds from the owner. I then know the wild populations on the mud flats of the inlet will be blooming in a week or two. The first time I hike to or land at one of these wild stands is one of the high spots of my summer, as it sort of quenches the thirst that builds up over the winter to just stare at flower after flower after flower. This is always a very poor time for me to make selections from the wild, as they invariably all look special or magic. It is also, on the other hand, a little intimidating because as I look out over an endless expanse of iris, the sheer volume of bloom is overwhelming, and I actually feel a combination of elation & despair, if you can imagine such a conflicting emotion. This is sort of how I imagine you hybridizers must feel in the spring, with the overwhelming abundance of blooms to analyze. I usually spend most of the day there, especially if it's a fly
in site, and by the end of the day, I'm pretty tired of all that purple. I've actually flown back to our homestead a few times with a greenish yellow reaction going on in my eyes because I've looked at too much purple during the day, so much so that I can't read the GPS screen, which has a chartreuse base color, and I usually don't want to look at irises for a day or two.
The weather was 40 degrees on Friday, and then yesterday, sleety snow, which was miserable to fly in, as everything including the windshield, kept icing up. It took me half a day to fly back to town, having to land at three lakes to scrape ice off the plane. What a dog it became. I almost decided to just camp on the last lake and relax with my sleeping bag and a good book, except I was expected back, and I didn't want the rescue posse after me, headed by my husband. And then today, it was a warm windless 45 degrees.
The snow is disappearing fast because of the steady increase of daytime warmth, and there is greenery coming up around south-facing house beds where the snow melted two weeks ago. I saw a crocus in someone's southern bed 2 days ago. I need to plant some crocuses. They seem to be an indicator bloom for everyone.
The pussy willows have been blooming for three weeks, which means snow melt has reached their roots. This is the first true harbinger of spring. Everything else follows them. They are the spring flower of sentiment for me, though not truly a flower.
One other bloom report I forgot to mention:
the dog droppings are coming out of the snow, and budding extravagantly. The fragrance is, well....not floral.
(Editor's Note: I found this on the internet on April 12th and could not resist printing it here, with Kathy's permission, of course. It is refreshing to read another iris lover's version of spring. Imagine having to fire up the airplane to go see some irises!)