Let’s Talk Trash! SEPT / OCT 2019
15
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In the early 1930’s, Tennessee residents were swept up in a wave of gardening. Enthusiastic green thumbs joined garden clubs, discussed native plants, and urged the state legislature to designate a state flower. Lawmakers joined in on the excitement and soon the beautiful Iris was chosen. The trouble was, Tennessee already had a state flower! 14 years earlier , in a process overseen by a five member state commission, the state’s school children had chosen the passion flower as the Tennessee state flower. Not surprisingly, the Iris’s new title
There are many reasons that gardeners across the state embraced the Iris. The exquisite perennials grow easily here, providing ornamental value and colorful appeal to residents year after year. While the legislature did not specify a color or particular species in its official naming, the Purple Iris is widely accepted as the Tennessee state flower. https://www.proflowers.com/blog/ tennessee-state-flower-the-iris
did not sit well with passion flower enthusiasts. Discontent on both sides of the issue kept the matter in floral limbo for 40 years. It was not until 1973 that the state legislature orchestrated a compromise and named the Iris Tennessee’s state cultivated flower. Iris flowers appear on the Tennessee license plate. They are also the subject of one of the state’s official songs (“When It’s Iris Time in Tennessee.”) And each spring, residents from Chattanooga to Knoxville gather for the state’s annual Iris Festival which honors the Tennessee state flower with a rodeo, a floral show and coronation of (what else) an Iris queen.
PASSION FLOWER PURPLE IRIS
COLOR THE IRIS
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