When Jim and I bought our house, Dad and I dug up all kinds of plants from the family homestead (which at that point had been promised to a developer, but had not yet been sold): lilacs, peonies, creeping myrtle, pachysandra, roses, forsythia, daylilies, crocus, and iris. Jim’s and my house came with a small, but completely blank, yard.  The people who owned it before us had gotten rid of all the poison ivy (thank goodness), but hadn’t added any plantings. 

The plants from the house I grew up in, most of which originally came from my two grandmothers, settled in nicely in our yard.  Five years later, the lilacs are getting tall, the rose bush is bursting out with new growth, and the iris are having their best year ever.  These iris didn’t come from a grandmother like the other plants – they came with the house when Mom and Dad bought it.  At that house, they lived out by the street, and suffered a lot from salt and sand; at our house they have a place of honor far away from the street, and they are incredibly happy.

So here’s a photo of the iris in full bloom, mostly for the benefit of Jean, Dan, and Dad (click on image to enlarge):