ABC Wednesday: Rambling "I's"

It's been a couple of weeks since I last participated in ABC Wednesday, so I wanted to catch up today. The letter I is not an easy letter to use, especially when I try to focus primarily on gardening. Today's post is a miscellany of I's, starting with . . .

An IGLOO

No, this is not what my yard looks like today; this picture was taken in January. This igloo is actually a dog house which Older Daughter brought home in August. When I asked her about it, she just smiled and said, "Just wait." Knowing her propensity for taking in any four-legged creature who needs a home, I was afraid a new dog would soon be occupying it. However, she flew back home to Arizona shortly afterwards, without bringing us a dog or ever explaining the purpose of the doghouse. I must remember sometime to ask her what she was thinking.




Of course, as most of you know, there is a new dog at our house now. Miss Sophie, however, has sniffed at the igloo doghouse, but doesn't find it to her liking, nor would I dream of leaving her outside to sleep in it. She prefers lying at the foot of my bed at night to sleeping in her crate, but at least that's better than sleeping in my bed.

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A favorite "I" word of mine is Irony. I picked up this magazine at the supermarket a few weeks ago--notice the headlines. Why is it that almost any so-called women's magazine always has a quick weight-loss program as one of its lead stories . . . and a picture of a scrumptious 2,000 calorie dessert on the cover?? No wonder I can't lose weight!

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There is also some irony in my garden. The only flower I could think of that started with the letter "I" is Iris.

This is an Iris.

This is not an Iris.

In my Bloom Day post on Sunday I showed this foliage which I assumed were "Siberian Iris," or so they were called by the friend who gave them to me. Every spring the foliage appears, but they never bloom----or so I thought. Sharp-eyed Tina pointed out that they look like "Naked Ladies." The more I thought about it, I realized that is in fact what these leaves are, since this is exactly the place where the Naked Ladies surprised me last August.

For anyone not familiar with this name, we're not talking some kind of porn here. The picture above is of Lycoris squamigera, commonly known as "Naked Ladies," "Surprise Lilies," or "Mystery Lilies." The foliage of these lilies appears in early spring, then dies back over the summer, and suddenly bursts into bloom, seemingly out of nowhere in August. The irony is that all this time I've been looking futilely for some small iris blooms, when I had these gorgeous blooms instead. (Incidentally, I suspect the original Siberian Iris fell victim to Mr. Lawnmower Man some time ago, though he's never confessed to it.)

That's it for the I's this week, but now I'm regretting that I missed the last two weeks of letters, especially H. I realized too late that the letter H stands for some of my favorite flowers: hyacinths, hostas, hellebores, heucheras, and hydrangeas . . . just to name a few.

Last spring's hyacinths

Oh well, these beauties will all have their day in the sun very soon.


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