Human Flower Project
Fleur-de-Lis at Chelsea
A French iris breeder succeeds with a patriotic new bloom.
French king
in battle uniform
Image: B. Timms, Heraldry
The event may be utterly English but the hit of this year’s Chelsea Flower Show seems to be French: Ecoutez, regardez.
Jinny Blom’s Laurent Perrier Garden, “Inspired by the chalky landscape of the Champagne region of France,” features “a delicate muted palette of colors—cream, blush, copper, watery blue and claret with particular focus on irises.” Oh-la-la, rococo. As well as being exquisitely pretty, this garden is drawing attention at Chelsea because it’s so timely. While over the past few days the flower show grounds caught gushing rains, England as a whole has been dry. Most of the U.K. has been under a “hosepipe ban” since last summer, injecting a certain tremulousness into gardeners’ ordinarily stiff-upper-lips. So iris is the flower of the hour; though the blooms are delicious and delicate as Fragonard, the plants are drought tolerant.
It may smart a little that iris, a.k.a. flag and fleur-de-lis is having such a banner year under these inhospitable conditions at Chelsea. For the fleur-de-lis, of course, is the emblem of France.
There’s quite a bit of controversy over when and how the fleur-de-lis became the insignia of French royalty. The name most often mentioned is King Clovis (@466-511): “Legend has it that an angel presented Clovis, the Merovingian king of the Franks, with a golden lily as a symbol of his purification upon his conversion to Christianity.” Very nice, except as even the heraldry experts will agree, the fleur-de-lis doesn’t so much resemble a lily as an iris, specifically iris pseudacorus, golden yellow with sharp arching petals.
Yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus)
Photo: G. Bradley, for UK Safari
This is the color and shape we see wherever the French traded, fought or breathed. (Check out, for example, the official seal of St. Lucia and this iris-spangled window from Bourges Cathedral.)
And it’s a French hybridizer Cayeux Iris whose flowers are stealing the Chelsea show. Rubbing it in, Cayeux has introduced Reussite, a tricolor—bleu, blanc et rouge, like the French flag. (Okay, so the Union Jack is blue, white and red, too, as are Old Glory and any number of other national banners. We still get the message.) London Times writer Julian Desborough gives credit where it’s due.
Reussite
Photo: Cayeux Iris
Admitting his own weakness for irises, he writes, “The one that caught my eye is a doyen among growers, Cayeux Iris, which is showing 41 different bearded irises, of which 24 have been bred by the French horticulturists themselves. The latest cultivar, “Reussite” or “Success”, is the culmination of 30 years of hybridisation work by Richard Cayeux and his father Jean. They have achieved an iris that represents the French tricolour – red, white and blue. The petals are white, the sepals white with a blue edge (without a trace of purple) and the barbs are red.”
“Barbs” is about right.
For lots more on Chelsea (May 23-27), check out the BBC’s huge site. Here you can design your own virtual garden and get up to the minute video downloads for your mobile phone. Maybe next year, they’ll be able to communicate that grapey fragrance of bearded iris too.