JUST A PRETTY IRIS

I'll be all right, really. I don't know what made me go off to photograph an old church in the hills without a battery in the camera. I'm not going back today, however, so here we have a bearded iris from "auntie's garden." Auntie's gardens are the result of well meaning people planting plants upon you without your knowledge.

These are growing in a narrow strip of land, about the width of a size 11 shoe, where someone else planted a sturdy flower that blooms in July. The soil is dreadful. Both have spread all along the strip. A hill rises right behind them and is covered in wild harebells. It's a harebell year. There are banks of them everywhere. Italians eat the bulbs which are reported to be delicious but I'm not going to dig them up and not have the flowers next year. There are other things to eat.

As for who planted the iris, it could have been the man who helps with the olives or, since we had to have stone retaining walls built everywhere to prevent mud slides, it could have been one of the stone masons, all lovely chaps. It could have been a neighbour.

The only trouble with auntie's gardens is that some of the contributors have a taste for large and exotic plants with huge leaves and flamboyant blossoms. They require masses of water during the hot dry months but I can't let them perish, can I? What would the neighbour's think?