It Happens Every Year

Humans mark their calendar with a variety of seasonal events, such as Halloween or the Summer Solstice, not to mention the Vernal Equinox which so nearly ran over Mark Twain’s scientific expedition in “How the Animals of the
Wood Sent Out a Scientific Expedition.”  
See http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1545/.
We take many regular and predictable events for granted, but these are all very dull. Fascination lies in  mysterious events that make no sense at all. One of the most absolutely predictable of these regular mysteries is the annual Iris Torrent.

Photo above by Karen Mawyer

On the third day of the first flush of the German Iris season, the heavens open and wind-swept water pours down in obliterating masses, battering the sodden earth while lawn furniture, fragments of trees, and small animals whirl helplessly through the air. Sometimes the annual Iris Torrent is accompanied by dangerous amounts of lightning and thunder, and sometimes it isn’t—the electrical component actually seems to be random—but in my experience the thunder and lightning are the only random aspects of this annual event. 

Though I grow irises, I do not cause this annual event.  I am not sure if the irises themselves actually cause it or make it inevitable somehow; cause and effect is not as clear-cut in the natural world as it sometimes seems elsewhere. The irises may signal it, or the annual Iris Torrent could be some form of extremely regular
coincidence, like eclipses. 

I had been wondering if the Iris Torrent was really inevitable this year. Last fall I uprooted and replanted our iris beds. I do this every three years; otherwise they choke out and become prey to diseases and predators. The first year after replanting, the rhizomes often spend more energy rooting than making blooms and the new bed can be a bit sparse. Normally I do this by thirds, only replanting the oldest bed each year. But last year I replanted all
the irises, doubling the square footage that is “under iris” so to speak. I was not certain how vigorous this year’s iris flush would be, but after a cold, wet winter and spring most of the replanted irises undertook to bloom to some extent, so the first flush was at least respectable. 

Photos above by Karen Mawyer

In the upshot, we got 6 inches of rain this past Wednesday and Thursday.  There was wind and thunder, but no lightning. The power in our area went out just after midnight on Friday morning, when a full-grown poplar tree fell over and smashed the transformer up the road.

Photos above by Karen Mawyer

There was significant flooding in the area, with water over roads and bridges in some places, and still high as of this bright but relatively cool Saturday.  Yesterday after work I spent several hours clipping and pampering my battered and sodden irises. I’m hoping they will mostly stand back up in this newly drowned world and
re-bloom with a second flush.

The newly built gates on the new 8 foot fence we built this spring to protect our raised beds and other tender plants held up just fine in the deluge. That is not surprising.

Note the way aged bits of wood in the back gate, pictured below, have been layered to produce an exquisitely irregular surface, and the complete lack of any right angles. The ancient lichen clinging to some of its boards adds a strangely organic quality to the overall effect.  This gate might appear to have been hammered together in the dark out of broken pieces of wood. The sheer ingenuity of the thing is subtly concealed. There will never be another just like it,  in part because the old fence that parts of it were cannibalized from is no more.

The front gate, below, is wider than the back one. It measures  7 x  8 feet,  as much of a span as a normal person could hope to lift without assistance. Its walkway remains to be paved, and the new wood stained or painted, and I have an iron handle for it, as it needs a closure. I spent a good deal of effort in building this gate, seeking to achieve a sense of unforced Procrustian polyhedronism, using bits of string to measure it and sawing off anything that stuck over. Its irregularities stem organically from hammering it together on the ground right in front of it, which is not flat. This is a locally contoured gate. You could not buy this.

Ironically, the Iris Torrent caused the peonies to start blooming. This white peony, a gift from Alex and Kirsten, is a favorite strain and a very robust peony. These were transplanted last year also. It seems to encourage them.

Photo above by Karen Mawyer

Stand by for the annual Peony Torrent, a cataclysmic and sometimes tornadic deluge of wind and water that occurs without fail every single year just as soon as the peonies open. What causes it I do not know. One theory
is that the water dumped in the Iris Torrent evaporates and forms clouds which then rain again. That, however, does not account for the eerie sense of inappropriate timing, the most striking part of such events.