Bloom Where You're Planted

My secret garden isn't so secret anymore. And that's all right with me.

For the past few years, I've written about and shared photos of irises that bloom along the Zenith Road. That's the blacktop road that takes us part of the way home, so it's as familiar as the back of my hand.

They are just a hop, skip and a jump away from the co-op elevator at Zenith, where we haul our grain. (You can see the elevator on the horizon in the photo below.)

This year, one of my friends asked me in late April, "Are the irises blooming yet?" At the time, they weren't. But they are now. She grew up in the neighborhood, so she can claim them, too.

 

Since we discovered them blooming under the shadows of old cottonwoods, we've wondered who planted them. There's not a stone foundation there.

But Randy noticed some old pipe sticking out of the ground this year. So these purple blooms may have bordered a gate or walkway toward a long-forgotten farmstead.

The ground where they bloom is for sale. I hope the new buyer keeps them around.

These days, the irises are flanked by a CRP field, the dry, brown grasses of winter a sharp contrast to the brilliant colors and soft petals that form the old-fashioned spring flowers.

 

As we examined them more closely, we noticed several of the stems devoid of their blooms. They were likely food for the deer that flash in and out of the same trees and have been the source of more than one close call on our Zenith Road travels. 

Irises remind me of my Grandma Neelly, who had them in her backyard. You could see them from her kitchen window, where she cleaned up the dishes after poaching eggs for breakfast or serving Sunday's homemade chicken and noodles after church, followed by her light and sweet angel food cake. Seeing irises stirs up those memories as deftly as Grandma stirred up her rhubarb pies each spring.

There's another hidden patch of irises near the Ninnescah Pasture. With some poison oak and weeds camouflaging them, they aren't as pretty. And, just like with the Zenith irises, you have to know where to look.

As we left the pasture after our fishing trip last week, we drove by the small patch and found them blooming again.

They weren't the only "secret garden" we found on our way home. A field of canola bloomed vibrant yellow against an overcast blue sky.

The field is nestled at the end of a dead-end road where we had to turn left or right. Instead, we parked the pickup and trailer and walked up an old field road to get a close-up look. Beauty is all around us, there for the taking.

Nature gives us lots of reminders to bloom where you're planted.