The iris are blooming. We have just a few, only these small Siberian ones, slender, weighted with their own blossoms, bending slightly with the fullness of the season. We bought these from a local lady whose garden was once the envy of the neighborhood but who has since passed away and whose yard is but a shadow of its former self.

But bulbs from the “Iris Lady” are planted all over the mid-Atlantic and even farther afield. Her garden grows not just in Oak Hill, Virginia, but in countless climes and soils. It has done what flowers and people are supposed to do, has given itself to others, has held its head high.