The Iris Walk in May 



It has the longest fall of any Iris I know. Here and there 

 among the broad-leaved flag Irises appear the long, narrow 

 leaves of the Little Widow, La Vedorina of Italian gardens, 

 no longer allowed to be an Iris, and obliged even to change 

 her sex and reappear as Hermodactylus tuberosus. What 

 a pity it is that the question of votes for women cannot be 

 as easily settled by allowing Mary and Jane to appear on 

 the register as Tom and Harry. I love this weird little 

 flower, made up of the best imitation I have ever seen in 

 vegetable tissues of dull green silk and black velvet in fact 

 it looks as if it had been plucked from the bonnet of some 

 elderly lady of quiet tastes in headgear. I am fond of 

 picking just enough for a vaseful to stand among other 

 vases holding Daffodils ; both the sombre Little Widow 

 and the gay bachelor Daffs gain by the contrast. 



A portion of one of the Iris beds was taken out to a 

 depth of three feet and then treated as nearly as we could 

 arrange it in imitation of the wonderful hollow of shell- 

 sand among the sand-hills outside Haarlem where the 

 celebrated Regelio-cyclus Irises have their happy home 

 under the protection of Mynheer van Tubergen. I have 

 no shell-sand and no dunes, but my favourite birdcage 

 variety of sand and the screening Yew trees are used as 

 substitutes. We, as well as the Dutch, have cows, so we 

 can provide the same form of nutrition for the Irises here 

 as that which agrees so well with them in Holland. The 

 lower portion of this hole we fill with manure collected 

 directly from the meadows where the cows are browsing, 

 and then cover it with about six inches of the yellow sand 

 in which lie the rhizomes of the precious Irises, while 

 their roots can wander down and feed fatly. Artemis, 

 231 



