Tell us about the “oldest” flower in your garden.

Here’s mine, and while it’s a vintage plant, the details are hazy. I don’t even know its official name.

In my back yard is blooming a white iris that is very fickle. It blooms once every three years or so. There are also some blue irises in the mix. I’ve never seen the blue and the white bloom the same year. Perhaps they don’t like each other.

How old are my irises? Here’s what I thought: My mother told me that these irises came from my Aunt Ada’s pen pal in Holland. The pen pal mailed rhizomes and they’ve prospered in an “I’ll bloom when I feel like it” pattern ever since.

These flowers started growing in the U.S. on the family on Columbus Grove Road. Some moved into town thanks to mom. Then she gave me some. That makes them third generation.

I’ve always projected the following estimate on their age: My aunt graduated from Bluffton High School in 1929. I’ve guessed that her pen pal years might be anywhere six years earlier or so. That could put these as U.S. natives around 1923 or earlier.

When I sent a photo to my sister, bragging that my irises decided to bloom this year, she informed me that the story our mother told her was different than my story.

Her version is that the flowers belonged to our grandmother, Susan Steiner. That could place that age of the originals anywhere from the late 1800s to the 1940s.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter which version is correct. The interesting part to me is this: When thinking about all the items one might possess from ancestors, it’s possible that flowers could be the oldest. And they keep blooming…sometimes whenever they feel like it.