Rushing into July

 Allium moly 'Jeannine' is a departure from the pinks and purples common in the Allium genus. She is sunny and dependable and gets better year after year.

The state may be shut down, but there's plenty going on at sillydoggarden. Once the rain and the wind let up earlier this week, the party kicked into high gear: Roses, peonies, lilacs, iris (bearded, flag, Siberian), martagon lilies, hardy geraniums, thyme. The many players really know how to rock!

I'm planting out the last of the annuals this weekend, and the vegetable garden is pretty much in -- we need to re-sow beans thanks to all the rain. The good news is that the drainpipe installed between the cold frame and one of the raised beds worked like a charm during last night's downpour.

Bearded iris in the back. On the left is the Nebraska Immigrant and on the right is the iris from Chicago.

'Brand's Magnificent' is one of several new peonies in the garden. Like other peonies, the flowers are showy, the foliage is handsome and the deer don't seem to like them.

The 'Miss Kim' lilacs are spectacular this year. And the fragrance will knock your socks off!

 And, here's a wider view of 'Jeannine.'

Everyday miracles

Bearded iris 'Dusky Challenger' (Yet another day of rain this week.)

Memorial Day iris

The Nebraska immigrant iris began blooming this Memorial Day weekend. Its timing couldn't be better as the rhizomes came from my great-grandparents' graves in a tiny, remote cemetery in southwest Nebraska. I wonder if the iris is blooming there now, too.

I've become quite attached to this iris. It's beautiful and it's tough. Even rhizomes discarded in the used soil pile with no protection or care show signs of life after winter. Is it bullheadedness or a profound desire to live?

The softly fragrant, pale yellow blossoms are a reminder of family ties and loved ones who have died, as well as the importance of resilience. A capacity for resilience was required of those who wanted to create a life for themselves on the plains -- I hope I inherited at least a little bit of that resolve.

No-name irises

The first bearded iris to bloom.

As much as I like knowing the specific variety of a plant, sometimes, in the end, it doesn't really matter. Take these two bearded irises for example. The gold one is the first to bloom here; the first bud opened a week ago. It came from a stand of irises at my father-in-law's Chicago-area home. They were planted many years ago and the name has long been forgotten.

Found in a Nebraska cemetery.

The name of the pale yellow iris, which started blooming just a day later, also is unknown. It's from a country cemetery in southwestern Nebraska, where it rings the graves of my great-grandparents. The tiny graveyard is in the middle of nowhere, and who knows who originally planted the iris or how many springs they have bloomed. We sliced off a couple of pieces of rhizome when we visited about 10 years ago. It was one of those perfect fall Nebraska afternoons, when everything was blue sky and burnished earth, and it seemed appropriate to take a piece of the day back to Minnesota with us. From those first few pieces of rhizomes we now have six sturdy, beautiful clumps.

Both varieties feature smallish blossoms, very different from some of the highly-bred varieties you see in many catalogs. But they possess a simplicity and a grace that can't be duplicated. Plus, every summer they are a reminder of where we came from.

Purple 'Joan Elliot' campanula glomerata is a friendly companion
for the Nebraska immigrant.