Picture 3
in each box to see what they were and who had sent
them. With all of the delays in our travel, Nancy had
been able to reschedule her volunteer help so we
could start planting on Friday. We had a total of 73
different varieties, but we were missing the box we
had been expecting to come from France with a
collection of irises from overseas hybridizers.
Friday, July 20, was a very hectic day. Presby
was having a plant sale, so volunteers were busy
with customers; Kathy and I were measuring and
marking out the space in Bed 23; Kathy’s daughter
Rebecca drove up from Delaware before lunch to
help; and I was emailing and texting president Roland
De Joux of the Société Française des Iris et Plantes
Bulbeuses to find the missing box, which turned up
at Mid America Gardens on the west coast of the
U.S. Thomas Johnson to the rescue! It had just been
delivered to Mid America the day before. After
several phone calls (thank goodness for the west
coast being three hours earlier than the east coast),
Thomas was able to arrange for FedEx to pick up the
box Friday afternoon and ship it overnight to us to
arrive Saturday. You don’t want to know how much it
cost. By late Friday afternoon Kathy, Rebecca, Patty
(a Presby volunteer), and I were putting the plant
stakes with plant numbers and iris in the ground
(Picture 3).
Saturday it was starting to rain a little, but the
FedEx box arrived promptly at ten in the morning
in remarkably good shape for having traveled as far
as it had. Inside were another 45 varieties and only
one of them had rotted. Presby finished its plant sale
on Saturday while Kathy, Rebecca, and I took a side
trip into Manhattan for an overnight to see a show
and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Our time in
Manhattan was fun but wet and very, very crowded—
lots of summer tourists in NYC in July.
Sunday evening we were back at Walther House
30 AIS Bulletin Winter 2019