Friend of Gardening--Memorial Day Traditions Abound

By Gwen Posdeschi, Christian County Master Gardener

If your house is fifty years old or older, chances are that you have at least one peony on your property. These old-fashioned perennials are harbingers of May. I remember when Memorial Day was ALWAYS celebrated on May 30^th as Decoration Day, and I went along with my mother and grandmother to cemeteries, taking jars filled with white and pink peonies to decorate the graves of relatives. The blooms were huge and fragrant, with a stray ant or two usually going along for the ride, buried among the petals. Occasionally, some purple, white, or yellow irises (Grandma calls them flags) were still in bloom and they were added to the bouquets as well. A rainbow of irises have appeared in America's gardens since those days as well as a respectable number of hybrid peonies, including a new cousin called the "tree peony," but I still think of these two flowers as old-fashioned, a sure sign that the home they surround has been there a while.

Cathy Robertson moved into her home on South Webster Street on New Year's Eve, 1988. She brought a peony from her mother Alberta DiPietro's home on West Vine Street. Cathy had grown up there next door to the English-style cottage garden of Alfreda Norman. A line of peonies grew on the property line between the homes, typical of early 20^th-century landscaping. "Probably, the peonies were originally Miss Norman's," Cathy says. "She loved gardening and was always sharing plants with my mother and then with me." A Mother's Day present when she was expecting her son Aaron in 1989 was a tree peony. Traditional garden peonies are herbaceous, meaning that the plants die back to the ground each year and regenerate the following spring. Tree peonies are deciduous shrubs that lose their leaves in the fall. Usually between 3 and 4 feet tall, these plants can definitely make a statement in your garden. Cathy's tree peony failed to come back about five years ago, but she enjoyed it for many years and it still lives in her memory, like all good garden friends.

Betty Lovekamp does have a tree peony alive and ready to burst into dinner-plate-size bloom in her garden. "There wasn't a plant in this yard when we moved here in 1990," says Betty of her home on Cynthia Court. "The house was nine years old with a row of white pines on one side and a row of jack pines on the other. Betty and her late husband Herb brought plants from their garden at the family farm. They had inherited family plants there, adding to them and then moving them, when their son took over farming responsibilities.

"It's not hard to transplant peonies, if you just follow the rules," says Betty. "Don't plant the start too deep. The cap of the root needs to stick out of the ground." She bought some hybrid peonies from a farm on the Assumption blacktop some 35 or 40 years ago. Her garden is truly lovely, flaunting peonies and irises that Betty often shares with friends. Large perennial beds wind throughout the yard, inviting the visitor to enjoy a May day of color and fragrance.

Farm families like the Lovekamps often share plants from grandparents with children and friends. That is certainly the case with Debbie Weber's garden haven among husband Larry's fields of corn and soybeans. "My peonies came from my Grandpa, Kenneth Curvey, some fifteen years ago, at least. He always had peonies, pink and dark pink ones," says Debbie. His farm in Bear Creek Township was his father Frank Curvey's farm before him and Debbie brought his irises and double daylilies from there as well. "I also have a plant from my Grandma Luber in Colorado, but I'm not sure what it is. It has a hard time with Illinois weather though."

Daughter Laura is planning to carry on the tradition by lifting a start of peonies for her home in Peoria, but Debbie's favorite peony memory comes from the after-prom breakfast party she had for daughter Amanda Grieve. "I picked a big bunch of peonies and shook them off and brought them in for a bouqet," says Debbie. "When we looked down, ants had started coming out of the flowers. I guess we needed to remember that peonies often come accompanied with ants." Indeed they do. Master Gardeners get their share of questions about that relationship, but none of us have ever been given a definitive answer for why ants seem to love peony buds and young flowers. One of nature's little mysteries, I guess!

Those other stand-byes of the May garden play a prominent role in the display in Sarah Cook's garden on East Park Street. Her Uncle William Cook brought some irises from the Christian County family farm and he passed his love of flowers along to his niece, who still lives there. "It was hard at first, getting used to living where other folks were around all the time, watching what you do," says Sarah. She recalls neighbor Beatrice Emerson putting her head out the window and saying, "Hey, you won't have any yard left if you keep digging places for new plants." Sarah replied, "You can't eat grass," and kept digging. Her uncle William and Beatrice's husband Frank collaborated on the flowers they were growing.

Sarah's garden continues behind the house, where she grows vegetable as well as flowers. It's always fun to take a daily trip down Park Street in May though, to see her collection of irises. Gathered mostly from mail-order sources, the variety of colors is something I go out of my way to see every May. "I get a lot of compliments on them [the irises]," Sarah says, and well she deserves them.

Memories of May should definitely include these big perennial favorites. Whether grown by your grandpa or bought from the latest hybrid collection, peonies and irises will add to the color wheel of your garden palette for years, maybe decades, to come.

Christian County Master Gardener, Gwen Podeschi, conducts interivews with local residents who have a special talent, project, or landscape feature of interest. These interviews are then written up and published locally.