TN State Iris Garden

Entrance to a Tennessee State Iris Garden in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.

The other day I stopped to visit the Tennessee State Iris Garden out on Central Pike. When I visited a year ago, I had spent some time exploring the plantings and chatting with the owner, Katie, who—in many ways—reminds me of my mother. Although it had been a year since I stopped, and although the spot gets a myriad of visitors, Katie remembered me and welcomed me back. I was glad to be back; delighted, in fact.

As the iris I bought from Katie last year all got distributed among friends, nary a one actually planted on our farm, I made a point to buy fewer than a dozen in hopes that I would be able to tuck them all into the earth before being tempted to share. Limiting myself was an exercise in restraint, well aided by a lack of available funds, and I had tagged my limit in short order.

This year Katie gave me a roll of fluorescent tape (not sticky), and the requisite notebook and pen. The plan was to tie a bit of the tape around stems of flowers I wanted, but since she only had one color of tape handy, I added my initials to the flags I set so as not to confuse them with plants marked by others. The notebook was to track the names & descriptions of the flowers I chose. (Once our beds get full enough to make sales from—daylilies coming soon, folks!—I shall have to adopt her idea of asking customers to tag plants to be dug. So clever!)

Some of Miss Katie's iris beds.

Thanks to our recent rains the rows between the beds were boggy in places, so I promptly removed my shoes and placed them on her electric cart to follow us. With pants rolled up, I was ready to work. 

Although last year I think I was focused on pinks, blues, and maroon-colored flowers, this year I was shopping for yellows and peachy-oranges to complement the brown and rust colored flowers we recently obtained from Dirt Dawg Nursery. Even so, I walked away with a purple or two, a highly-ruffled pink, and a delightful maroon.

The newest plants tucked into a bed.

Building the bed for these beauties took longer than the last, but was accomplished within a few days. The location is temporary; the plants will get moved within a few years to more permanent locations. For now, though, all of our showy, named irises are in one area, while those without names (often with few ruffles) are set around the yard for show. Those nameless plants either came with the farm or were acquired from Master Gardener friends. As they multiply, I will dig them to share with other Master Gardener friends.