Why I Plant the Iris, Poppy, Daylily, Coneflower, and Naked Lady (Last Installment in This Series)

Five Spectacular Easy-Care Flowers

If you would like to grow low-maintenance flowers with spectacular displays from late spring through early fall, here are five of my favorites.

1. You can’t go wrong with the iris, named for the Greek goddess of the rainbow. When I was growing up, my father clipped the long stems of the iris to place on graves on Memorial Day. In those times, no one resorted to artificial flowers. The iris and the peony were the flowers of choice in the cemeteries that I recall. Most likely, the iris, not the lily, is the basis of the fleur de lis, the well-known symbol. I turn to heraldica.org for this explanation: “It is a stylized flower, but which flower? It looks more like an iris than a lily. Moreover, lilies are never yellow in the wild, whereas some irises are. Could there have been confusion between the two flowers? The word ‘lis’ appears in French in 1150, whereas the word ‘iris’ designates the flower in the 13th c. The term ‘fleur de lis’ in the heraldic sense is attested in 1225. … a hypothesis ventured in the 17th c. sounds very plausible to me. One species of wild iris, the Iris pseudacorus, yellow flag in English, is yellow and grows in marshes (cf. the azure field, for water). Its name in German is Lieschblume (also gelbe Schwertlilie), but Liesch was also spelled Lies and Leys in the Middle Ages. It is easy to imagine that, in Northern France, the Lieschblume would have been called ‘fleur-de-lis.’ This would explain the name and the formal origin of the design, as a stylized yellow flag. There is a fanciful legend about Clovis which links the yellow flag explicitly with the French coat of arms.”

Yellow Iris Gracing My Flower Garden

2. Poppies can take center stage when the iris blooms are fading. I have always thought of poppy petals as crepe paper, maybe because, when I was little, flowers made from the paper were distributed in my church on Mother’s Day. Anyone whose mother was living wore a red flower, and anyone whose mother had passed away wore a white flower. While the simple flowers were supposed to be carnations, I mistook them for poppies. Whenever I see poppies, I still believe that their petals might feel like crepe paper.

Poppies Providing Bursts of Bright Color

3. After the poppies have dropped their petals, the daylilies can have their day in the sun. Actually, they can have months in the sun! When you plant different kinds of daylilies, you can ensure fresh blooms throughout the summer. Some varieties will keep flowering for four or five weeks. Others will bloom for one cycle, rest for a while, and bloom again. New blossoms open each morning to replace those that had gladdened the previous afternoon.

Daylilies in Stately Profusion Along My Driveway

4. For a thick planting of fairly tall blooms that continue throughout the midsummer, coneflowers are ideal. I like seeing the multiplicity of butterflies that visit the display, but few sights are more aesthetically pleasing than that of an orange monarch butterfly perched on a purple coneflower with its velvety orange center! Coneflowers require almost no care, other than watering during dry spells.

Coneflowers in a Thick Display

 

Velvety Orange Centers of Coneflowers

 

Purple Petals That Butterflies Find Irresistible

5. Finally, we have the shockingly nicknamed “naked ladies”! They are really the belladonna lily, but, under the circumstances, who can remember their real name? The green leaves of their springtime modesty die down by midsummer. In late summer, up leap naked flower stalks, and large pink trumpets unfold! “Amaryllis belladonna” was the name (Amaryllis) and description (Italian bella donna, or “pretty woman”) of an alluring rustic woman in Greek myth. The naked ladies are, thus, a form of amaryllis—and a toxic form, as suggested by the horticultural meaning of belladonna. If for some unknown reason you were considering the possibility of nibbling these flowers, be warned not to ingest naked ladies, for they are mildly poisonous. The sap of the plant causes blistering rashes. It is advisable to wear gloves during fall plantings of the big bulbs.

Naked Ladies with No Reason to Be Ashamed