The peony field is bursting with bloom for Memorial Day weekend. Cut peonies are specially priced at $1.00/stem today through Monday (bring a bucket and we’ll send you off with water for your flowers). We also have wrapped peony bouquets for sale.
This is also a good time to select peony plants for your gardens, as you can see so many varieties in bloom and make comparisons on colors, flower styles and growth habitat. Our iris gardens are full of color and fragrance, enchanting our visitors who stroll through them.
Many of you will enjoy family gatherings, road trips or other special traditions this weekend. Decorating graves is a long tradition for many of us. It can be a time of fond reflection while honoring veterans, relatives and friends. What can be better than decorating with beautiful peonies? Well, for some, it can be iris.
A gentleman drove up to the farm today and asked if we sold cut iris for Memorial Day. I told him we have iris plants, but not cut iris stems this year. I said we have lots of cut peonies available. He squirmed a bit and said he had his heart set on iris. I sensed that his tradition was iris. I referred him to our neighbors, Schreiner’s Iris and told him they should have cut iris available this weekend. He seemed relieved. He then told me the story – the story of his aversion to beautiful peonies.
He said peonies are lovely; but, he just had to have cut iris for Memorial Day. When he was a young boy, his Mother had peonies – big, beautiful, fine peonies. One year, just as the peony buds swelled, ready to burst forth with the most magnificent blooms his Mother would see each spring, he was overcome by an idea.
He was playing outside as he realized he could swing his baseball bat at just the height of those peony buds; and swing he did. It was like a home run. The adrenaline rushed. He batted those buds and batted again, knocking each one to the ground - his Mother’s prized peonies. “Well”, he said with a bit of remorse and a slight chuckle, “it left a very deep impression upon me; not only on my backside, but embedded in my mind each time I see a peony. Peonies are beautiful, but I have to have iris.” He thanked me for the referral and directions to the neighbor’s farm and headed out to get his cut iris. I’m hopeful they had some for him.
Here at Brooks Gardens, we’re all about peonies and iris….and some days, great stories.
We are open from 10 AM – 6 PM daily through mid-June. Our address is 6219 Topaz Street NE, Brooks (or Salem), Oregon, 97305.
Directions: from I-5, take exit 263; go east one mile to Brooks; turn left (north) at the stoplight; drive just over one mile to Topaz Street.
We are just over one mile north of Brooks, OR (between Woodburn and Salem, off of 99E) and 30 minutes south of Tualatin, Wilsonville and Canby, OR. About 40 minutes south of Portland, OR.
Follow our purple Peonies & Iris signs to our secluded Oregon peony farm.